Ethanol: Fact, Fiction, Reality

Advanced Biofuels Initiative

2008-12-22T11:50:00.000-08:00

I've finally wrapped up my scholastic responsibilities that have kept me away from blogging these past few months, which hopefully means that I will get back to a semi-regular schedule of postings. What better way to jump back in then to talk about the new plan by the Department of Energy to fund $200 million worth of test-phase biofuels plants that will work to produce advanced biofuels from cellulosic feedstocks. Their goal for the test-phase plants is to have at least 1 ton per day of cellulosic biomass be processed with the production of advanced biofuels. Advanced biofuels pertain to the production of non-ethanol or biodiesel liquid fuels from plant biomass that generally relates to those biofuels from cellulosic-derived sources.
The DOE plans to award 5 to 12 institutions/companies with the money to explore these possibilities, which could be the final push necessary to move the research in the industry beyond the lab and into the commercial realm. Several problems stand in the way, however, including how to properly release the energy held in the cellulosic biomass to produce the biofuel, and how to form the desired biofuel once this has occurred. It appears, however, that the government on the federal level is already taking the initiative to move some of these projects forward.

Wind Power Storage

2008-08-26T09:33:00.000-07:00

As more and more wind turbines begin to dot the countryside, particularly here in my area of Central Iowa, the debate intensifies between those that see wind energy as one of the most convenient and cost-effective power generations of our time and those who see it as a nuisance that clutters the sky and provides no real benefits.
I see the debate now as shifting as most accept that wind energy can and should be a part of our future power generation needs. Now people want to know how we make the technology small, more powerful, and more responsive to human needs. Groups working at NREL, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, in Colorado are working towards making windmills much smaller but still capable of producing electricity comparable to their larger cousins -- this could allow 'back-yard' wind generation to occur in residential neighborhoods. But perhaps the greatest obstacle to overcome for wind, and the reason that I am still not totally sold on the whole idea, is the problem of storage.
Since electricity is impossible to store in quantifies large enough to sustain a city, many people balked at New York's Mayor Bloomberg's announcement that the city should install windmills all over -- on buildings, bridges, and off the coasts. But how was New York going to be able to power itself during hot, stagnant days when no wind is available? This problem would necessitate New York to build an equal electrical capacity in coal or nuclear power plants no matter how many windmills were put up in order to provide for the times when wind power would not keep up.
While the problem is a long way from being solved, a New Jersey company has an interesting solution -- store the power as compressed air during the night or during high-wind periods so that the stored energy could be used at other times. The idea is interesting but implementation will be hard to come about since the group working on the project estimate that it would take an underground container full of compressed air the size of New York's Giant's Stadium in order to provide 300megawatts of power -- only enough to power a large hospital for 300 hours. Still, I like the idea and that innovations are being considered. After this companies announcement, however, wind energy proponents pointed out that a DOE report indicated that 20% of our power could come from wind by 2030 without the need for electrical storage.... I guess we will just have to wait and see.

For the original article, go to:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/26406082

Bacteria Boost Efficiency

2008-08-25T08:20:00.000-07:00

A group at Washington University in St. Louis have managed to use bacteria to break-down unusable portions of the ethanol process in order to make methane. With this extra methane, the researchers are able to provide a readily usable fuel to power the ethanol making process, thereby increasing the efficiency. While only in the laboratory stages, the researchers hope that the process will scale up to the size of commercial ethanol plants. The numbers from their tests prove promising -- they are able to cut the natural gas/coal usage for the ethanol process by 50% when using this technology. Since natural gas accounts for approximately 60% of the process energy needed to produce ethanol, this could mean that the new technology would increase corn-ethanol's energy efficiency from plus 20% to up to plus 70%! This would be an emphatic jump and would contribute to the short term benefits of retrofitting current ethanol plants, which is the goal of these researchers. If the numbers hold up, this might be a great energy and cost-effective patch to put on current ethanol plants, minus the obvious need for initial capital to build another bacterial reactor and the needed infrastructure to capture the methane.

For more information go to:
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/2023/70/

Ethanol Mandates to Biopetroleum

2008-08-08T11:52:00.001-07:00

A couple of interesting things to talk about today. The first is that the US EPA has denied Texas Governor Rick Perry's request to cut the ethanol mandate in half this year. Perry's request came at a time when corn prices skyrocketed to over $7 per bushel and put a squeeze on livestock farmers, particularly located in Texas. However, now that corn has dropped off its previous high prices, the EPA denied the request. This is the right move because the ethanol mandate, created by Congress to set a goal of 9 billion gallons of ethanol produced by 2008 and 11.1 billion gallons produced for 2009, is just that, a goal. Since the US is already very close to the 9 billion gallon per year mark necessary to satisfy the 2008 standard, cutting it would not significantly affect the production of ethanol or the prices for the feedstocks that go into it. At the same time the EPA, in its ruling, stated that it found sufficient corn to satisfy the 9 billion gallon level for 2008. In the end, I fear that Perry's clamor for a cut in the ethanol mandate comes in an election cycle where politicians look to satisfy some of the discord among their base -- in this case, the cattle farmers. While the situation for livestock farmers isn't desirable, the path that Rick Perry took to try to alleviate the problem wouldn't have solved anything -- a more efficient method would be to increase the price of fed cattle on the CBOT (Chicago Board of Trade) in order to give these farmers a fair prices.
The entire article above leads into the importance of the next piece of news since corn-based ethanol is emerging as the bridge to a whole new generation of biofuels. A group of researchers in China have developed a way to convert sunflower shells (biomass) into liquid petroleum. Although the fuel has several contaminates that make it impossible to go directly into fueling a car engine, the researchers are working hard in developing the methods needed to "upgrade" the fuel. For those of you familiar with Fischer-Tropsch, this method is very similar in converting biomass into liquid alkanes. However, it effectively eliminates many of the organic acids that resulted in corrosion and decay of the fuel when stored over time. The excitement about this new method is that while it may not be a simple way to convert biomass directly into a liquid transportation fuel, it can be built in small scales, which would allow it to be taken to a farm of other location and used to convert the low energy-dense biomass into a higher density liquid. This liquid could then be transported to the large "biofuel-refinery" where the fuel is converted chemically or biologically into the appropriate fuel (ethanol, butanol, gasoline...). For this reason, this new method is very exciting and we will probably hear more from this group in the future.
For more complete details on the "deoxy-liquefaction" technique, go to
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/08/researchers-d-1.html#more

Ceres, Inc.

2008-08-04T08:01:00.000-07:00

For any cellulosic ethanol industry to take off, there needs to be an abundant, biomass intense area from which to cultivate the plant material. The great hope is that this will not only pertain to areas already covered in biomass, such as corn-stalks or forested areas in the Southeastern United States, but that this will allow for the development of crops that can be grow in many areas of the US that are not hospitable to current agricultural growth. This includes the ultra-arid Southwestern United States where the development of a perennial crop could produce a valuable crop on marginal land but also would hopefully improve the land in the process by decreases soil erosion as well as providing a more humid environment where more rain development might occur.

A company called Ceres Inc. is trying to establish this idea of optimum energy crops for each region of the United States. To do this they have sequenced many of the genomes of switchgrass, miscanthus, and other plants and have then used selective breeding technologies to isolate varieties of the plant that match different areas, such as the desert Southwest.

Here is a map and diagram of their outlook for the next several years:

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/08/ceres-readying.html#more

Go to the website shown above for more information about the crop varieties listed above.

Ethanol Plants Lower Costs and Save On CO2 Emissions

2008-07-30T13:06:00.000-07:00

As the ethanol industry continues to establish itself, ethanol plants are improving their efficiency as well as their carbon dioxide emissions. This is not a totally selfless act, but it is done so that the ethanol plants are both able to survive in a climate where it can at times be hard to make a profit as well as a way to improve the overall efficiency of their process.
With the spike earlier this summer in corn prices, ethanol plants struggled to even make a penny on a gallon of ethanol sold, even with oil prices as high as they were. Now that corn has retreated and oil has remained comparatively high, ethanol plants have begun to breath a small sigh of relief. However, they are no where near out of the woods yet. Ethanol plants face dangers from possible rises in grain prices to the very volatile natural gas market that is most commonly used to power the large heaters used in an ethanol plant to boil off the ethanol from the water.
Two ethanol plants are leading the way in establishing a more sustainable process towards ethanol production. The first is an ethanol plant in Johnson County, Missouri that is teaming up with a local landfill to help make its process more efficient. Mid-Missouri Energy's ethanol plant will team up with the landfill to supply enough natural gas to offset 90% of the natural gas needed to power the plant. This is an amazing amount of renewable energy that, if calculated specifically for this ethanol plant, would make ethanol's benefit in GHG-emission reductions much greater than the 16% reductions seen in conventional plants. This is not only good because of the decrease in green-house gas emissions, but one of the biggest expenses for an ethanol plant is the energy needed to drive its distillation, (which can amount to 60% of the entire plant's energy requirements). So by establishing a reliable, cheaper source of natural gas, the ethanol plant, which is owned by a local farming cooperative, should become much more competitive in its industry.
The second ethanol plant to mention is located in Superior, Iowa. The local ethanol plant has won approval to install three wind turbines on site to generate electric power for the plant. This will not speak to the power needed to drive the distillation process but it should go a long way in providing renewable power to the ethanol plant at a cheaper cost as well as driving down some of the GHG emissions.
Both of these two plants are using unique ideas in an effort to improve the production of ethanol. From an innovative standpoint as well as a practical financial standpoint these improvements make sense if ethanol plants are to move forward in producing an environmentally friendly product at a price that competes for consumers.

Sources for the information above can be found at:
http://www.esthervilledailynews.com/page/content.detail/id/501320.html

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/2008/07/28/daily11.html

Nuclear "Deep-Burn" Technology

2008-07-28T08:59:00.001-07:00

I've said in the past that my mission is to focus these posts on matters directly related to ethanol. However, the current evolution of our energy situation has made the entire field complex and interdependent. For this reason, this post is about nuclear energy and, while not speaking directly to an ethanol issue, I think it is connected in that if we are to have flex-fueled cars with PHEV (plug-in hybrid electric vehicle) technology included, we better have an efficient, reliable, and clean source of energy to power the electric side of these vehicles.

The Department of Energy recently announced grant money going towards two labs, the Argonne National Labs, and the Idaho National Labs for the study of "Deep-Burn" nuclear reactors. These designs are slated to go into the technology for the next generation of nuclear power plants, known as Generation IV nuclear reactors, which may be put into electrical production sometime around the year 2020. The idea of a Deep-Burn is to coat the outside of the plutonium or other nuclear fuel particles with a ceramic shell. This allows the nuclear fission process to occur at much higher temperatures, thus dramatically increasing the efficiency of the electricity generation as well as eleminating almost all of the nuclear waste produced in the process. In fact, in preliminary studies, the process is so efficient that it makes reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel rods from LWR (light water reactors) economically feasible for nuclear power plants.

What this means is that if the process of the Deep-Burn nuclear reactor can be implemented correctly, we could enjoy efficient, cheap, nuclear power with much less nuclear waste. Of course, the problems of the plant over-heating resulting in a nuclear meltdown would still exist, and since the process would still result in some nuclear waste, it is by no means perfect. It is however, a great step forward. One last thing to keep in mind is that with this event horizon (at least 10 years away), the technology for a fusion-style nuclear reactor may be perfected in that time frame and allow for much more efficient fuel burning with little or no nuclear waste. We will just have to wait and see on that one.

For more detailed information, go to:

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/07/us-doe-awards-7.html#more

Argonne's Futuristic Combustion Engine

2008-07-23T14:28:00.000-07:00

Like it or not, whether we find ourselves driving purely electric cars, hydrogen cars, or nuclear-powered cars like in Back-to-The-Future, we will undoubtedly have residual contact with the conventional gas-burning engine for quite some time in the future. It might be in the form of cars driven in developing countries or it could simply be that other alternatives in the future here in the United States are simply too expensive for the regular driver to pick up the tab on the new technologies. For this reason, improving traditional engines to run on a mixture of fuels such as gasoline, ethanol, or butanol, would allow for a technology that improves the environment and domestic fuel supplies to become more mainstream in a faster time.
Argonne National Laboratories has announced plans to work diligently to create an engine that would be able to burn efficiently using any blend of gasoline, ethanol, or butanol, and do it in a way that optimizes mpg's and reduces emissions. To do this Argonne Labs proposes an improved sensor inside the fuel cylinder that will be able to monitor the oxygen-contents of the fuel and time the injection properly to optimizes the burning of the fuel in the engine. Remember, ethanol and butanol are different than gasoline in that they contain an OH (oxygen and hydrogen) group at one end of the molecule. The extra oxygen is what provides a better burn in ethanol and butanol and sustains higher octane ratings for the fuel. However, in conventional engines made today that are not flex-fuel, the computer can not distinguish the extra oxygen in the fuel and ends up injecting too much ethanol into the cylinder, resulting in fuel waste and lower miles-per-gallon.
The beauty of Argonne's idea is that if an engine such as this could be created in the near future, it could allow all new cars to be produced in what would essentially be a "flex-fuel" category but allow for all fuels to function equally well. Since such a technology would be cheap to implement, it could potentially go a long way in providing an alternative solution to conventional gasoline to people that might not be otherwise able to participate in this revolution.

Ford Continues March Toward Next-Gen Vehicle

2008-06-27T13:39:00.000-07:00

In previous posts I have mentioned Ford's Escape Hybrid as being the vehicle to take us into the next generation of vehicles with a mpg rating higher than most cars and the capability of combining flex-fuel and hybrid into the same package. Today Ford announced improvements to come out in its line of Ford Escape Hybrids for the 2009 model year. Although none of the 25,000 vehicles they plan to produce in 2009 are planned to contain a flex-fuel advantage, they still hold several benefits over other vehicles.

What Ford did was to improve the timing of the fuel injection and increase the speed at which the car's hybrid battery carries engine performance up to 40 miles per hour. This means that until the small sized SUV tops 40 miles per hour, the battery will be in control of the engine. Amazingly, Ford was able to do this without increasing the engine's need to charge the battery more. They did this by improving the breaking efficiency and convert that saved energy into the battery for greater storage.

With these combined technologies, Ford can offer an Escape Hybrid that gets 34 mpg's in the city and 31 mpg's on the highway -- almost as good as the most efficient four-door cars on the road. However, the price tag will probably be around $27,000. If flex-fuel studies on the Ford Escape/Hybrid come to flurishen, this could be a great vehicle for the future, particularly in the prices for the battery and hybrid system can come down.

For original article, go to:

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/06/ford-gives-2009.html#more

New Additions to the Cellulosic Ethanol Stage

2008-06-19T10:35:00.000-07:00

Although thermochemical and biochemical methods for the production of ethanol are the most practical and widely used methods to produce ethanol and cellulosic ethanol, electrochemical methods are another option. Thermochemical methods pertain mainly to burning the cellulose in a controlled fashion to produce a gas stream. This is usually combined with a biochemical catalyst (most likely a bacterium), where the gas stream is converted into ethanol. This combination of thermochemical and biochemical methods are what GM and Coskata are backing in their hopes to pioneer efficient ethanol production from cellulose.

However, Mitsubishi and RedOx Biofuels have agreed to work together on an electrochemical approach to producing ethanol from cellulosic feedstocks. With gas prices soaring and the price of corn skyrocketing due to the flooding in the Midwest, there has been an even greater push towards the creation and implementation of an efficient process to produce cellulosic ethanol. Electrochemical methods, such as those used by Mitsubishi, uses electricity and acid/base hydrolysis to break the bonds in cellulosic ethanol so that the sugars can be accessible to the bacteria that can convert them into ethanol.

The problem with Mitsubishi's method is that unless they develop a way to use electricity in a highly efficient manner to break the bonds in cellulose I can almost guarantee to you that the process will use more energy than it produces. Thermochemical methods have the potential of working because the burning process can be self-sustaining once the material begins to burn (requiring only a portion of the feedstock to continue the process). So my reasoning is that although Mitsubishi is trying something new, it doesn't seem like they will be able to get very far with this process. Their proposed target is only 800 liters of ethanol produced next year, which is pitifully small even for a pilot-plant.

The facts are that fuel molecules, such as ethanol and certain furfural compounds that can mimic gasoline can be produced using electrochemical methods. The problem is that they can only produce a small amount of product and it takes an immense amount of energy using current procedures to make the process work. If nothing else works, these methods would be fine.... but I think we can do much better.

Here is a schematic diagram of what Mitsubishi envisions for their process:

New Ford Flex-Fuel Hybrid

2008-06-12T09:39:00.000-07:00

Finally got a few seconds to make a quick post on Ford's new concept vehicle. It is a Ford Escape PHEV with flex-fuel capabilities. In other words, the compact-SUV is plugged in at night and can run approximately 30 miles on the charged battery (not great but not too bad for city driving). Once the battery is run down, the flex-fuel engine runs on 85% ethanol with a hybrid system to save energy during stop and go driving. This is exactly what I have been e-mailing Ford and other car companies about -- we need to integrate technologies in order to build a car that will operate in the future.

The beauty of this Ford Escape? It gets 88 miles per gallon in the city and 50mpg in highway driving! And, with the use of the batteries and ethanol additives, CO2 emissions from the vehicle are cut 60% over conventional gasoline vehicles -- 90% if the ethanol is made from cellulosic feedstocks. We need this car right now and if it were on the market, I'm sure it would be a hot seller. Unfortunately, Ford only has one produced and has given it to the Department of Energy for testing. If you are interested in this technology I strongly suggest doing what I have done and e-mail Ford directly, telling them you want to see this type of vehicle come on line as soon as possible.

Soggy Midwest Weather May Dampen Corn Crop

2008-06-03T12:31:00.000-07:00

While dragging through a rough winter here in Iowa we were reminded of one thing -- that when spring and summer rolled around the weather would be back on our side. And even though the forecasters were pretty united in their call that Iowa and the Midwest would be in for unusually dry (drought) weather, neither seems to be coming true. This has been an exceptionally wet spring that has some Iowans talking about the last major flooding disaster to occur in the state back in 1993. On top of these dismal weather days, the rain couldn't have come at a worst time -- right when farmers are trying to get out into the fields to plant corn and soybeans that seem to be in ever increasing demand in a world full of food and biofuels. The problem is that wet weather not only prevents farmers from getting into fields for fear of getting their tractors bogged down, but capped mud can also prevent a germinating seed from being able to punch through the soil to get the sunlight needed to survive. Also, small plants only a few inches tall can not survive in standing water that might be up to a foot deep or more in some places.
The wet weather comes in a year when corn supplies may already be tight and the USDA estimates that farmers will plant more soybeans and less corn this year. The bottom line is that the more days that farmers are prevented from getting the crop started, the lower the potential yields become. Even though perennial crop investor and adviser service DTN has tried to dampen concern by saying that much of the news has already been priced into the cost of nearly $6.00 per bushel corn, it looks as though things might only get worse before getting better. With more wet weather in the 7 day forecast for central Iowa, it could be tough to match the corn output that was seen last year in a particularly tight season.
Hopefully we can get a more balanced weather pattern in the next week or two.

Coskata Joined in Race for Cellulosic Ethanol

2008-05-29T09:06:00.000-07:00

Although Coskata may be getting the most amount of press and attention these days for their work towards mass producing cellulosic ethanol, they definitely are not the only ones working on the problem. Louisiana based Verenium Corporation has announced plans to enter the cellulosic ethanol race with a pilot-scale plant of their own in Jennings, Louisiana. The company plans to have a scaled up commercial plant capable of producing 30 million gallons of ethanol per year by 2010, which would put it approximately on schedule with Coskata.

However, there are some major differences that give Verenium the advantage in terms of hurrying production along and disadvantages. Verenium produces cellulosic derived ethanol using an enzyme pretreatment and then genetically engineered e. coli stains that possess the genes to convert 5-carbon sugars, such as xylose, into ethanol. This is an improvement over yeast, which are only able to convert 6-carbon sugars, such as glucose, into ethanol. With the e. coli stain possessing an additional pathway that is abundant in cellulosic ethanol, it allows the plant to move forward quickly with relatively novice technology. In other words, existing corn-ethanol plants could easily be retrofitted with this new bacteria and would become cellulosic ethanol plants. However, the downside is that the technology does not escape many of the problems that currently plague corn-based ethanol. Sure, the feedstock would be more flexible, owing to the company's claim that they will be able to produce ethanol forl around $1.84 per gallon including their debt responsibilities. But they don't escape the massive amounts of energy needed in the pretreatment step, which Coskata gets around by gasifying the biomass, and it doesn't seem as though Verenium has improved any of the downstream applications, such as separation of ethanol and water after the fermentation step.

The bottom line is that Verenium is going to be a fast mover towards cellulosic ethanol, much like South Dakota based Poet. However, in the long run, Coskata will have a definite advantage over these two players as its holistic approach towards cellulosic ethanol production that seeks to address many if not all of the problems found in corn-based ethanol, will eventually prove to be the winner.

Below are graphics provided by Verenium on their process stream and on their calculated costs to produce a gallon of ethanol.

GM & Coskata

2008-05-27T12:39:00.000-07:00

Coskata held a media day over the weekend to update the press and public about its ongoing efforts to produce cellulosic ethanol using a gasification followed by fermentation process. The event released some interesting results, indicating that although Coskata has yet to delve into the realm of reengineering their clostridia species to produce different types of fuel besides ethanol, they have been effective in their screening methods in producing larger amounts of ethanol from their bacteria. Their graphic, which is shown below, indicates that Coskata has improved their system a great deal in the past few months and managed to produce moderate amounts of ethanol from their system.

The development allows Coskata and GM to move forward in their goals to get a pilot plant up and running in Pennsylvania by the start of next year and a 50million gallon per year ethanol plant running by 2011. Coskata believes that by using multiple gasifiers, they will be able to process between 1,500 and 3,000 tons of biomass per day. Their business plan also estimates that by using and reinvesting these profits, Coskata will be able to expand to establish 20 biorefineries per year by 2015, which would allow for the widescale production of ethanol from cellulosic wastes and allow up to 35% of gasoline fuel demand to be offset by ethanol.

This is all good news but highly hypothetical, of course. Although I'm sure they are aware of the difficulties, Coskata mentions the goal of engineering their bacteria to produce bio-butanol, a fuel that would have an energy density much closer to that of gasoline. However, butanol is highly toxic to bacteria, even at relatively low levels, so it remains to be seen whether this idea will pan out or not.

ANWR Oil

2008-05-23T13:54:00.001-07:00

Although not directly pertaining to ethanol, this post pertains to a recent study by the EIA. But, then again, what doesn't pertain to ethanol these days in one way or another. The EIA (Energy Information Administration), which are the same guys that come around every two weeks to tell us how much gasoline and diesel the US has so that prices can swing up or down, completed an up-to-date study using computer modeling to plot the maximum amount of oil that could potentially be recovered by drilling in ANWR (the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge). Their findings show that the oil production would peak in the year 2027 and would peak at roughly 780,000 barrels of oil per day. Although this is just a computer estimate, the EIA knows what they are talking about and 780,000 barrels per day is not a lot of oil. To put it into perspective, the EIA predicts that 780,000 bpd would lower the price of a barrel of oil by $0.75. That is 75 cents off of a $135 barrel of oil! And for even more perspective, Saudi Arabia agreed to increase their oil output by 300,000 barrels per day after President Bush's latest visit to the region and that hardly decreased the price of oil.
My point is that I firmly believe that if we needed to we could drill in the ANWR without harming any of the habitats or animals. I think a better argument against drilling there is that it probably won't affect our situation greatly and would be depleting a resource that, if anything, the United States should try to retain in terms of domestic proved oil reserves. Just my two cents on a pretty complex and contentious issue.

For more on the original study:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/anwr/pdf/sroiaf(2008)03.pdf

Chemically Derived Transport Fuels

2008-05-22T13:28:00.000-07:00

With oil and gas prices rising even higher today there is no doubt that synthetic fuels are begged for if not required. This, of course, includes biofuels because if you think about it, all fuels are 'biofuels' the only difference is whether or not they are renewable or sustainable. Interesting news in the past week indicates even more work has accomplished positive results in the field of chemically derived transportation fuels. Researchers at the Biofuels Center of North Carolina have indicated that their 'centia' process allows the conversion of any lipid-like material (fats) to be converted into the three most sought after transport fuels, (jet fuel, gasoline, and diesel). This technology, while new, is not the first to be able to accomplish this feat. However, it is encouraging since they are able to take a relatively abundant resource (fats) and convert them into a 'drop-in' substitute for the fuels listed above.
Before jumping for joy in the hopes that this is a solution to our energy problems in the near term, here are a few things to pour cold water over your head. First off, even though they were able to prove that the process works, the next step is to generate these fuels on "a few gallon level." (Their words). A few gallons is hardly enough to make a splash in today's society. Also, the process requires high-heat and it remains to be seen whether this process is environmentally or commercially competitive, even at these high prices. The bottom line is that it is a start and it is refreshing to see that several different avenues to the same goal are being investigated. For what it is worth, I believe strongly in biological catalysts holding the key to converting renewables into gasoline substitutes. This is because even though chemical catalysts are easier to produce and mold to the researcher's exact specifications, they tend to cost much more and foul much more easily than a biological method.

If you want to read more about the process, here is a link:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/05/ncsu-to-demonst.html#more

Secretary of Ag lifts vail from Anti-Ethanol Movement

2008-05-19T15:10:00.000-07:00

The US Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer gave his two cents today about the recent backlash against corn-based ethanol. The secretary released evidence of a concerted effort by food-manufacturers to discredit ethanol in the arena of public opinion and to lobby Congress to repeal to recently passed ethanol mandate. Schafer released documents outlining how the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which governs such food giants as Coca-Cola and General Mills, hired a public relations firm to work behind the scenes to increase public perception that ethanol is a bad product in terms of food.
This by itself is disturbing but not wrong given that special interest groups lobby Congress for all sorts of reasons, including groups linked to ethanol. The problem is when these groups use false or misleading data to try and sway public opinion. Scott Openshaw was interviewed for the original story in the Des Moines Register. Openshaw is a representative for the Grocery Manufacturers and admitted that even though food price increases aren't wholly related to ethanol, it is the only part of the equation that Congress can do anything about.
This is a problem because they are using unfounded facts to scare the public into believing that corn can only go to EITHER food or fuel and not both. Interestingly, Edward Lazear, the White House's chief economic adviser told a Senate committee last week that even though world food prices have increased 43% in one year, the increase in cost due to ethanol only accounts for 3%. Given all of ethanol's other benefits, including keeping more American dollars here in the US and improving the income generated for the farm economy, I would say that special interest groups such as the Grocery Manufacturers Association and other groups that would remain in the dark to sway public opinion should be exposed for the liars that they are.
I'm just glad that we are finally starting to see public officials point out that the recent move against ethanol isn't coincidence at all.

For the original DM Register article, follow the link below:
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080519/BUSINESS/80519031

Numbers Behind Price Calculator

2008-05-11T15:38:00.000-07:00

Here is a quick but thorough explanation on how I built the ethanol price calculator. The best way to debate the ethanol issue is to be as transparent as possible about what numbers people are using and where they came from, because they can alter the final product and lead to the wide variations and inaccurate reporting that we often see.
To calculate how much less ethanol blends should be, we must consider the energy density. This is the amount of energy in the fuel molecules that can be converted into mechanical energy for the car.
Energy density of Ethanol = 24.8MJ/L
Energy density of Gasoline = 34.3MJ/L

This comes out to approximately 28% decrease in energy for ethanol over gasoline. Once this value is known, then the next step is to figure out how much blend is going into the tank. For example, if only 10% of the fuel is ethanol, then only 10% is susceptible to the 28% decrease. In other words, 10% of 28 is 2.8%, which is the amount of mileage decrease you would see in a car filled with E10. The same goes for E85 blends, where you would take 85% times 28 and find that the decrease is 23.8% over filling your tank with 100% gasoline. I then took these values and multiplied the original price of regular unleaded by these percentages to find the amount of money to subtract off the original price of gasoline to get the amount that the ethanol blend should be sold for.

Here's an example:
-If regular unleaded costs $3.70 per gallon and you want to fill up with 10% ethanol, you would:

1) Take 28% times 10% to find that the decrease in mileage is 2.8% per gallon.

2) 2.8% times $3.70 per gallon gives us .1036. (So 10.36 cents per gallon should be taken off the original price).

3) Finally, subtract $3.70 by 10.36 cents to get $3.59 per gallon should be the price of E10.

I hope this helps those to figure out on their own whether ethanol blends are worth their money. If they are not, please write to the gas station owners or your local legislature to make sure that we aren't being taken advantage of by blenders who want to earn more money by decreasing the margin between regular gasoline and ethanol blends.

Ethanol Price Calculator

2008-05-11T15:29:00.000-07:00

After an exciting and illuminating conversation I had this Mother's Day, I figured that along with my blog posts I should try to keep people informed about ethanol's pricing. One thing I've noticed in the past few weeks as gasoline prices rise is that the margin between regular unleaded gasoline and E10 super unleaded has remained the same. While in this part of Iowa, the price differences are usually 10 to 13 cents per gallon cheaper for the ethanol blend; making them cheaper to buy than regular gasoline, it may not be the case in other parts of the country. I wholeheartedly feel that during this "growing-pains" period in corn-based ethanol production the worst thing that those involved with ethanol can do would be to make ethanol blends less affordable based on energy density (which controls the number of miles you can travel on a gallon of the fuel blend). For this reason, I have installed a quick price calculator to the right of the blog posts. Simply enter the unleaded regular price of gasoline at the station near you and it will tell you the price of E10 and E85 that you would pay above which you are being charged too much. In my next post I will go over how I made these calculations.
A final note is that several studies from the University of Minnesota and South Dakota State University made preliminary findings that point out the possibility that ethanol might not cause the full dip in mileage that would be dictated by its lower energy density. If you want to read my blog post on this, copy and paste the following link:
http://ethanolfactfictionreality.blogspot.com/2008/03/e20-blends.html
However, this is a debate that is still ongoing and so I didn't include any of their findings that might alter the mpg, as you will see in my next post on how prices for E10 and E85 were calculated.

Swift Enterprises

2008-05-10T12:00:00.000-07:00

Wow, it has been a while since I felt comfortable writing in this blog. With exams to get through and work to keep up with, it has been a busy few weeks but, I'm back and hopefully can continue to write about things of interest. During my absence, there has been more than enough debate and all too often blatant criticism of biofuels and ethanol in particular. Rather than dwell on these arguments that, I fear, rely too often on raw emotion then on any kind of intellectual debate, I think it is time to look forward for a story to move beyond this impass.
With crude oil prices ridiculously high, I have heard more than one oil analyst state that it is not speculation that is driving the market, but rather the market is working correctly to force new innovations in the United States. While I doubt this is fully the case and I question the morality of crippling people's lives just to move us beyond fossil fuels more quickly, I know for a fact that $125 per barrel oil is having an effect on research. Everyone is looking for a solution that moves beyond corn as a primary feedstock and a solution that will produce higher energy (so called 'next generation') fuels that act more like gasoline.
Swift Enterprises, in conjunction with engineers at Purdue University, has announced that they have developed a method to generate the high octane (100 octane rated) diesel fuel that propeller planes use. They go on to assert that their method can use any biomass feedstock so they are not limited to corn and they say their method costs as little as $1 per gallon to make. While this is a great announcement and couldn't come sooner for an airline industry that is going into debt daily because of high fuel prices, there may be some problems. The first is that the method doesn't produce jet fuel used in commercial airlines. The second is that synthetic processes to make such things as car gasoline are already known. The problem with these processes is that they use chemical catalysts (which are materials that cause a chemical reaction to occur). These catalysts are often "poisoned" by contaminants in the biomass material, such as other metals or other organic materials. Because of this, even though the process is possible, it is not available on a large scale because it is simply too difficult to replace the expensive catalysts every time.
Although Swift isn't releasing much information yet for patent concerns, it looks like they've taken a bold first step. Hopefully they can continue to develop their method to gain more efficiency and reliability. If so, I guarantee we hear more about this company in the future.

For more information on Swift Enterprises:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/05/swift-enterpris.html#more

Farm Bill and Ethanol Subsidies

2008-04-25T16:27:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to update on the Farm Bill. The Des Moines Register is reporting that there has been substantial progress in the Federal Farm Bill because of compromises coming from both sides of the issues. The latest word is that the ethanol subsidies in the form of the blenders tax credit will be reduced from 51cents per gallon to 45 cent. The money saved will be diverted into a fund to encourage cellulosic ethanol production.
Although I don't think that it would be healthy to the United States to damage the extensive investment in the ethanol industry by totally throwing out the blenders credit, this is a very good step if it becomes law in the farm bill. The blenders tax credit mainly benefits the blenders who are rarely ethanol producers. It works well because it encourages blenders to use ethanol over gasoline, but reducing it by 6 cents per gallon probably won't diminish ethanol blending. Also, the government is taking the right steps in adjusting towards the future of ethanol, which is cellulosic.
Finally, I think it will be interesting to watch the outcome if this reduction in the blenders credit becomes law. The Bush administration has hinted at their willingness in recent months to lower the import tariff on ethanol designed to prevent overseas ethanol producers such as Brazil from enjoying the taxpayer funded subsidies such as the blenders credit. However, if the blenders credit is reduced, these tariffs could be reduced from the 53 cents per gallon currently seen to say, 48 cents per gallon. This would make Brazillian ethanol more attractive towards importing without seriously harming the domestic production and would possible take the pressure off the corn crop in the short term.

For more details or updates, check out the Des Moines Register at:
www.desmoinesregister.com

Gasifier Pilot Plant

2008-04-25T07:06:00.000-07:00

GM's partner in turning lignocellulosic feedstocks into ethanol, Coskata, has announced the location of their pilot plant to test the feasibility of their process. The 40,000 gallon per year plant will be located 30 miles Southeast of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and will showcase their gasification process to convert wood, agricultural waste, and industrial waste products into ethanol. The plant plans on producing ethanol by early 2009 and company reps have hinted that the process could cost as little as $1 per gallon of ethanol. This of course excludes any additional costs that might arise in terms of debt interest payments on building or materials. The good thing is that this plant will bypass any cereal grains and so will probably not be restricted by high feedstock prices, at least in the near term.
Some interesting stats on Coskata's production process as outlined in studies by Argonne National Laboratories. First is that the process will reduce GHG emissions by 84% compared to gasoline (corn-based ethanol reduces GHG emissions by 16%). Also, the ethanol can be produced in an efficient manner so that 7.7 energy units exist per energy unit of input (corn ethanol has a ratio of 1.6). And finally, the process uses less than a gallon of water to produce a gallon of ethanol as compared to corn ethanol where the process requires 3 gallons of water for every gallon of ethanol produced.
Although the main 50 million gallon per year ethanol plant is not scheduled for production until 2011, this is a major step in bring cellulosic ethanol into the mainstream and the numbers are encouraging that the process works.

Ethanol AND Hybrid Technologies

2008-04-22T10:54:00.000-07:00

I've said this is previous posts but I will say it again. The only way that the United States and the rest of the world is going to come to a reasonable answer relating to the complex topics of environmental impact, foreign oil dependency, and others relating to transportation fuels is to combine several meaningful solutions. By doing a quick search of the major automakers in America, it becomes horrifyingly clear that there is absolutely no interest by these companies in helping the public solve any of these problems. To illustrate my point, think of all the flex-fuel vehicles on the road today. Save the Chevy Malibu I would have to say that every single one is an SUV. And the hybrid-dominated companies don't have clean hands either. I can say that there is not a single company that has the foresight and innovation to build a hybrid car and install components capable of running 85% ethanol. Think of how easy it would be for Toyota to equip their prius, for only $100 to $200 dollars, with ethanol capable components. They would be able to corner the entire market, particularly here in the Midwest. So why won't they do it? I honestly don't have an answer. Combining the two most promising emissions/cost reducing mechanisms that are available seems like the right way to go.
Thankfully, a company out of Stolkholm Sweden named Scania, has already made 14 hybrid-electric city buses. I know that this isn't the answer that I was looking for in personal car production but it is a good step. These buses are already running and the data indicates the the combination of the two technologies has reduced GHG emissions in the buses by 90%!! And the buses are able to extend their fuel economy by 25%. Incredible. Hopefully Scania's lead will help push automakers here in the US to start thinking about the big picture and not just about ethanol versus hybrid versus hydrogen versus fuel cell -- that kind of thinking will get us nowhere.

If any of you are interested in this combination of technologies, I encourage you to write a quick e-mail to your car-maker. I did and the more they hear from us the less they will be able to ignore the fact that we want a combination of solutions capable of solving all of the issues.

For more info. on the hybrid-electric bus:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/04/scania-double-d.html#more

Ethanol Going Greener

2008-04-21T09:37:00.000-07:00

In anticipation of Earth Day tomorrow, I think it is time to reflect on one of the key benefits that ethanol offers -- its earth-friendliness. This fuel is renewable and, although its water/energy usages have been questioned, it still reduces some GHG emissions over gasoline (even if it is only a small amount). And so during the debate about food prices and yes/no debates on ethanol usage, I think there is one thing that a lot of people have missed.

Argonne National Labs completed a study and found that even though the meteoric jump to cellulosic ethanol production has not occurred, CORN-based ethanol has actually gotten greener since 2001. They found that ethanol plants have gotten more efficient in how much ethanol they can derive from corn -- 2.81 gallons per bushel of corn used is now the average, a 6.4% increase from 2001. Also, the total energy used in an ethanol plant to convert this corn into ethanol including fossil energy and electricity declined by 21.8%!! Think about that. That's phenomenal that after only 5 years (the survey compares 2006 data with 2001 data), the industry was able to reduce its total energy needs by 1/5th! This means that the energy balances would have to be recalculated in order to reflect this new data.

The report goes on to say that electricity grid use is down 15%, and that many plants have switched from coal to natural gas as a source of power, which reduces the GHG emissions even further. The survey found that a lot of these benefits were available because of better Dried Distillers Grains (DDGS) handling as most plants ship wet grains to farmers for feed instead of using a lot of energy in drying the DDGS. (Which is also the step in the ethanol process when most of the Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) are released making ethanol's NOx (nitric oxide) reduction benefit questionable). NOx is a major contributor to urban smog.

Finally, the report found that water consumption decreased 26.6% in ethanol plants during this five year period. This is a 1/4 decrease in water usage!! And in just five years! Think about what innovations are just around the bend after the Department of Energy poured billions of dollars into biofuels research.

The point is, we don't have to wait for ethanol to get greener... it already is. Sure there are still some areas that need to be improved. But overall this domestic fuel is keeping money in America, providing a dependable and renewable resource, and is cutting the amount of pollution and waste that has become so prevalent in this country.

Just today the DOE (Department of Energy) announced additional funding for cellulosic ethanol startup companies whose locations you can see below. The age of cellulosic ethanol is closer than we may think.

For the original Argonne National Labs' study:

http://www.ethanolrfa.org/objects/documents/1652/2007_analysis_of_the_efficiency_of_the_us_ethanol_industry.pdf

Novozymes in Ames, Iowa

2008-04-18T12:58:00.000-07:00

A prominent maker of enzymes designed to jump start the breakdown of plant materials into usable components for ethanol production is setting up shop in Ames, Iowa. The Danish biotech company Novozymes says that is plans to employ 4 people in the beginning in the Iowa State University Research Park and will open its doors to the facility April 22. The company says that the 4 employees will work in a lab and office/customer service setting and that the continued strong growth in the ethanol industry coupled with the potential for large technological advances from any potential partnerships with nearby Iowa State University is what brought the company to Ames. Worldwide, the company employs 4,500 people according the The Des Moines Register, and hopefully the company will benefit Ames and the ethanol industry with continued employment.

For the Des Moines Register article:
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080418/BUSINESS/80418032

April Showers

2008-04-18T06:18:00.000-07:00

Rain continued today over much of the plains states and into Iowa. The importance of this is that prolonged rain that saturates the ground will move the planting season further back. This is turn will probably shift more acres away from corn and into soybeans, which have a more manageable growing season. This may exacerbate the situation created by what the USDA predicts to be a more normal distribution of corn/soybean plantings across the Midwest and could continue to drive up corn prices in the short term. This in turn could challenge ethanol plant profitability for the summer and continue to apply pressure to the industry, resulting in a gradual slowdown in increased production. With a brief break this weekend followed by the possibility of more heavy rain next week, the planting season continues to be pushed back as we creep closer to May.

Food Prices and Ethanol

2008-04-15T14:20:00.001-07:00

For those of you looking for an unbiased and scientific source to back up claims that ethanol has little effect on rising food prices, Texas A&M University has the solution...
In the past few weeks it has been difficult not to see the reports of rising food prices around the world and the instability that it is creating. In fact, just the other day I watched a very interesting report on Iowa Public Television about rice problems in Southeast Asia. And TIME magazine and CNN have raised the possibility if not fully implicated biofuels and, in particular, ethanol, for the problems faced around the world. Even though ethanol may have a small impact on grain prices, the amount of corn that actually shows up in the price of grocery items is actually very small. Before getting to the Texas A&M study I wanted to jump back to the report I saw on rice issues in Southeast Asia. Evidently, the cost of rice has skyrocketed on projected weak inventories because of large increases in demand from India and China, whose countries are getting bigger and richer and demand more corn and especially, rice. Because of possible supply problems India, (second only to Thailand in Southeast Asia in the amount of rice exported), has agreed to suspend exporting any rice to ensure domestic demand is met. This has caused other countries such as Cambodia to fear for their own domestic stocks and have in turn closed their rice export industries. What this has done is put the whole rice burden for South Asia on the back of Thailand. And whether the rice stockpiles are actually decreasing or not, the action by certain counties has caused exactly what was originally feared... no rice on the open market.
Interestingly there are a lot of parallels between what is seen in Asia with rice and what is seen in the US with corn. A few months ago China decided that since there population was growing, they would suspend exporting corn. Since China is second only to the US in corn exports, this has a huge impact on the world corn market. Even though it has allowed the US to increase corn exports to record numbers, it has generated a wave of speculation and commodity purchasing of corn and other US products because of a perceived drop in inventories. This drop may be real, but it has little or nothing to do with biofuels.
More importantly, the increase in energy prices, along with the weakening dollar, has driven investors away from the stock market and into the commodities market; where speculation continues to drive up the price of grains.
The Texas A&M study was able to look at these trends and find that the overall biggest cause of rising food prices is high energy prices. They even found that grocery items such as milk, eggs, and bread that are closely tied to corn were largely unaffected by biofuels production and that reducing or removing ethanol production would have little impact on these prices. I find it interesting that media outlets will assume that one things causes another without any causal evidence to back up their claims. So next time you are in a conversation with a friend/neighbor/coworker about this topic, let them know that you've got scientific study after study that will refute any claim that ethanol is a major contributor to global food price increases.

For the original Texas A&M study:
http://www.afpc.tamu.edu/pubs/2/515/RR-08-01.pdf

Who knew there are things in North Dakota?

2008-04-11T06:47:00.000-07:00

Aside from the joke in the title, the US geological survey is announcing that an oil reserve found in Montana and North Dakota may hold between 3 to 4.3 billion barrels of oil along with 1.85 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Although much more difficult to recover than oil from Saudi Arabia or Venezuela, it is possible to recover it and in today's era of high oil prices it has become not only possible but profitable to recover oil from difficult places such as the oil sands area in Canada.

Even though this is an exciting find, and proof that although we should prepare for the worst oil will still be available for at least as long as the 40 years that industry experts are predicting, I think that the United States might be best served to sit on its proven oil fields for now. Just like the oil fields in Alaska, saving them will allow the US to hold a strategic advantage over other countries should the world realize a strong decline in crude oil or if OPEC attempts to embargo oil to the United States. Also, holding on to proven reserves will allow the US to hold on to a commodity that almost assuredly will not decrease in value over the next few years -- making it a very strong investment option.

Here is a map from the USGS (geological survey) indicating the approximate area of the underground reserves.

Methane replacing natural gas

2008-04-10T14:16:00.000-07:00

Poet of Sioux Falls, South Dakota and a major corn ethanol producer here in Iowa, is laying the plans to implement a new technology aimed at cost reduction and sustainability. The company plans to build 10 miles of pipelines from Sioux Falls' landfill all the way to Poet's ethanol facility outside of the city. There the company will be able to use methane, (a major greenhouse gas), instead of natural gas in the process of making ethanol. With recent volatility and high prices in natural gas, Poet has resisted going the route of using coal to power their plant, which could lead to higher emissions. Instead, they will end up paying the city of Sioux Falls (a total which could reach over $1 million a year), in order to offset 10% of their natural gas using methane in the first phase and 30% offset by 2025. This will inevitably save Poet money and could reduce carbon dioxide emissions at the plant by 26,400 tons per year. This in turn would make ethanol's GHG reducing ability that much greater and make the process more appealing and sustainable. It is good to see a company like Poet, who has been a proven leader in ethanol technology innovations, coming forward with this bold but well thought out plan.

Here's a look at Poet's ethanol plant:

http://images.tdaxp.com/china/20060701/CIMG3037_thm_380.jpg

Nuclear Electricity

2008-04-08T11:55:00.000-07:00

As a neat little aside from ethanol production, there is a cool new result from former Los Alamos Lab nuclear engineers who have started their own company, named LAVM. This company revealed that they have created a nanoparticle array, composed of gold and lithium hydride (LiH), that is capable of converting nuclear radiation into electricity. Currently, nuclear energy is given off as heat, which in turn warms up water baths creating steam to move turbines and generate electricity. Although in its trial phases, researchers point out that using this technology could allow small nuclear applications such as space-craft using a small nuclear reactor to generate electricity in a small space. Furthermore, since the nanoparticles use the radiation to generate electricity, it has the potential to act as a radiation 'scrubber.' This technology is however in only preliminary stages and it will be some time before we know if it can be applied on a large scale. Either way it is very cool to see these new innovations moving forward.

Update on PHEVs

2008-04-07T12:23:00.001-07:00

In previous posts I've touched on PHEVs (Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles), and their role in moving our transportation system away from liquid fuels. Keep in mind that PHEVs are vehicles run on electricity supplied from an outlet such as one in your garage. This is completely different than a HEV or hybrid vehicle that stores energy produced from breaking the car. While hybrids are definitely the way to go in conjunction with biofuels to lower gasoline consumption, PHEVs need to be looked at carefully to ensure a productive transition to their use. What many might not understand is that although there will be no pollution at the tailpipe for PHEVs, the electricity must be generated somewhere. As I noted in an earlier post, this electricity can cost as much as gasoline right now and emit almost 7 times as much GHGs as gasoline burning cars if the majority of the electricity is derived from coal power plants.

A study from Carnegie Mellon University emphasizes this point and clearly shows the difference in advantages gained using PHEVs if the electricity comes from coal burning or a diminished GHG emitting source such as nuclear power or wind/solar power. Below is a chart of their findings:

The results from calculating how much GHGs are emitted throughout the generation and utilization of the energy indicate that using current average electricity rates, using PHEVs could reduce GHG emissions by 32%. This number is approximately equal to that of hybrids -- 30-40% reduction in GHGs. The reduction is even better when combining HEVs or PHEVs with biofuels such as E85, shown in the above chart on the right hand side.

Proponents will be quick to point out that the reason to switch to PHEVs is a continuation of the ideology that simply removing imported petroleum from the equation is a good thing for now and we can deal with the greenhouse gas emissions with developing technology. I agree with this but also feel that switching a majority of the US automobile fleet to electric too quickly would negate any kind of gain from solar/wind energy that might be realized and the result would be a large demand for coal power plants. As the above chart shows, combining renewable technologies such as biofuels and electrically powered cars could be the best solution we've got.

For the full article and to review the above chart, check out:

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/04/study-meaningfu.html#more

Iowa Bucks National Trend

2008-04-04T11:46:00.000-07:00

As a scientist I like having direct evidence and controlling all variables in such a way that a direct cause and effect relationship can be established. And so I think everyone should take today's post with a grain of salt but understand that the indicators have shown a consistent connection between what I am about to tell you.

Today the Revenue Estimating Conference for the State of Iowa increased the state revenue projections for this year by $127 million. This accounts for nearly 2% of the $6.4 billion budget for the state of Iowa, representing a significant increase during struggling economic times. Although strong agriculture revenues are being celebrated as a whole for increasing revenue flowing into the state, the real catalyst for this improvement is most probably ethanol. Like it or not, ethanol has reversed the flow of our dollars to overseas markets and has made the demand for goods made predominantly in our state that much more valuable. While many people understand that higher food prices are mainly due to factors such as high oil prices and a weak dollar, some people still accuse ethanol of having a large impact on those prices. Even so, with these numbers, I don't mind paying extra for milk and cheese because the tax revenue flowing back into the state house is allowing the State of Iowa to continue to fund improving education programs as well as the Iowa Power Fund -- $100 million going towards research into advanced biofuels so that the next step in ethanol production can be realized.

The point is that with increased state revenue coming in and only 3.5% unemployment in the state, I'd say Iowa is doing alright at the moment and a big thank you is deserved for the people who pioneered the establishment of ethanol production in our state.

For the original article:

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080404/NEWS/80404024

The Best Defense is the Truth

2008-04-03T10:43:00.000-07:00

For those of you who have kept up with my posts over the past month or two, you will know that I try to refute misinformation about ethanol whenever possible that is presented in a way that the public who is not consistently surrounded by ethanol news might be able to understand. Although I think I have done a relatively good job, I recently read an article that hits the nail on the head -- not trying to cover all information but rather showing how casting ethanol away as an unaccomplished piece of garbage is not the right thing to do. And even though I enjoy writing my entire posts, this time I'm going to copy and paste the article because it is so well written. Please read Bruce Dale's article "Demonizing Ethanol," found below. Dale is a distinguished professor for chemical engineering and materials science at Michigan State University and this is what he had to say about recent attacks on the worthiness of ethanol:

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan’s famous line: There they go again.On opinion pages around the country, including this one, a procession of critics has taken to lambasting domestically produced renewable fuels in general and ethanol in particular. The latest entrant into the debate is syndicated columnist Walter E. Williams, who recently cited a half-dozen wildly distorted reasons for concluding that ethanol is a “cruel hoax on the American consumer.” This is a puzzling spectacle. The price of oil is floating around $110 per barrel—meaning that, as a nation, we are now writing daily checks for the jaw-dropping amount of $1.4 billion to feed our foreign oil habit. And yet the chief object of the critics’ scorn is a clean-burning renewable fuel that is made in America, by American farmers and workers, with American crops and technologies, to the clear benefit of the American economy. It doesn’t make sense. But the critics have created an echo-chamber effect by repeating each others’ recycled canards about ethanol in a way that presents a veneer of validated truth. Take the issue of water use. Cornell University entomologist David Pimentel—the fountainhead of quasi-scholarship for the anti-ethanol movement—makes the bizarre claim that it takes 1,700 gallons of water to produce a gallon of ethanol (if you count rainfall absorbed by corn plants as a bad thing). The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page gleefully repeats it. Walter Williams repeats it again. And so it goes, ad infinitum. Pimentel is also the source of the yarn—repeated by Williams—that it takes more energy to produce ethanol than the ethanol itself contains. The critics never mention that it takes more energy to produce gasoline than the gasoline itself contains (because it takes petroleum-powered equipment to drill, transport and refine crude oil). Nor do they mention the fact that a substantial percentage of the energy required to produce ethanol is the free solar energy that makes plants grow. Details, details.Another oldie but goodie is the argument that ethanol can’t stand up on its own in the marketplace. Williams hits that theme hard, as does the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, repeatedly. The reality is that the world marketplace for transportation fuels is effectively under the control of state-owned oil companies…and some of these states are actively hostile to us. Even the publicly-traded oil majors are not likely to let in competition unless the government compels them to do so with targets and incentives. The howls of “let the market decide” are remindful of the position Microsoft took during the Internet browser wars of the 1990s—when the company was simultaneously using its total control of computer operating systems to muscle out any competing software. There should no longer be any doubt that America has a national interest in weaning itself off of foreign oil—a national interest that deserves a robust policy response. Congress and the president rightly passed legislation in 2005 and 2007 requiring renewable fuels like ethanol to be blended into the country’s fuel supply, and providing incentives to make it happen. It’s working. American renewable fuel producers supplied nearly 7 billion gallons of ethanol in 2007, and the industry is on track to meet a target of 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels of all types by 2022. How is that not a good thing?Critics say: Corn ethanol will only cover 10 percent of our current fuel consumption. But 10 percent is huge. And the reality is renewable fuels like ethanol are just one part of what will have to be a multi-pronged solution to America’s energy problems. We also need more fuel-efficient cars and trucks, alternative vehicle technologies such as batteries good enough to let drivers plug in to the electricity grid—and renewable energy sources to power the grid itself. The big difference between ethanol and a lot of those other technologies is that ethanol is readily available today. We don’t have to wait for some future innovation to start making a dent in the country’s energy problem. By any measure, ethanol is better for the planet than gasoline—and it is getting better all the time. Today’s ethanol made from corn is priming the market for the coming generation of alcohol fuels that will also be made from wood chips, urban waste and other feedstocks, not just agricultural crops. America can invent its way out of its current energy problems. In fact, with renewable fuels, we’re already on our way.

Time's Take on Corn-Ethanol

2008-04-02T06:24:00.000-07:00

Although I really didn't want to weigh in on a gossip magazine article, I've been receiving e-mails from friends and family that shows that this story has had the effect that its authors wanted. For those of you not aware, the most recent issue of TIME magazine has a cover story on corn ethanol that is scathing to say the least. If you haven't read it, follow this link:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725975,00.html

It's interesting that TIME would write this article -- for a long time I assumed that the magazine was one of the best unbiased sources for journalism. But if you read this article it is easy to see just what kind of agenda they are touting. Before I offer a critique on the article, I want to say just one thing. Even though I am researching ethanol and advanced biofuels and admittedly do support current and future ethanol use, I do not manipulate numbers. I do not blindly relay "truths" and reasoning that is not supported by fact. For example, CNN ran a scathing report on corn ethanol about a month ago with Miles O'Brien as the anchor. Even though they presented a lot of corn-ethanol's faults, I enjoyed watching the show because they interviewed ethanol producers to make sure that both sides were presented. I hope that in the same way those that read my posts feel that although I support ethanol, I will not hesitate to point out its faults because, if you think about it, why would I be a research scientist trying to improve ethanol production if I thought that it was perfect?

Shifting back to the article in TIME, their problem was a story run supported by only one publication -- a recent Princeton article that stated that ethanol emitted more GHG than gasoline. However, even the scientist behind the article admitted later that these findings only applied if forested land in the United States was converted to corn and that this was only the worst-case scenario for a future of corn-based ethanol. If you consistently and professionally look across the studies done on corn-ethanol, the numbers line up with the Department of Energy's numbers that corn-ethanol from seed to fuel emits 16 to 20% less GHGs than gasoline. 20% isn't great but it's a start. Remember, corn-ethanol was started several years ago as a new way to market corn that wasn't worth the dirt it was planted in. As industry leaders have said all along, corn ethanol is a bridge to a future of sustainable biofuels use. That is what researchers like myself are working hard on right now.

So, unlike TIME, let's layout the pros and cons of corn-based ethanol.

1) Ethanol reduces GHGs 16 to 20% over gasoline.

2) Ethanol has a petroleum usage ratio of 1.6:1 meaning that 1.6 gasoline equivalent units exist in the fuel to every one gasoline equivalent units used. (Gasoline itself has a ratio of 0.8:1).

3) Ethanol requires 3 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of ethanol. (By the way, it takes 8 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of gasoline).

4) The fermentation and distillation process requires large amounts of energy, often derived from natural gas but also sometimes by burning coal.

5) Increased corn demand (1/5 the US crop went to ethanol production in 2007), can cause pressure on other crops to increase their prices in order to compete for acreage.

6) US gasoline requires an oxygenate, such as MTBE in the past and now ethanol, in order to increase the octane rating and provide a better fuel. Ethanol satisfies this without increases air pollutants or increasing groundwater contamination.

7) Ethanol is completely domestic. The gasoline offset by ethanol saved the entire US economy billions of dollars just last year.

This short list above is just a quick overview of some of the pros and cons of ethanol. Like I said, ethanol is not a knight in shinning armor but it is a good samaritan -- helping out in any way that it can. As a scientist, we are keenly aware of the problems and there are many solutions that are in the not-so distant future. New production methods will significantly cut the amount of water it takes to produce ethanol as well as the energy used in the distillation process. Cutting energy use will decrease the amount of natural gas or coal used and will improve the amount of GHGs that ethanol reduces. Coskata and GM teamed up last year to announce that by 2010, just two short years away, they will have a commercial cellulosic ethanol plant up and running. Aside from the fact that cellulosic ethanol could have GHG emission reductions near 86%, this would also alleviate the problem of competing for acreage with food crops. And, since cellulosic feedstocks like switchgrass are tantamount to natural prairie, it should decrease erosion and runoff and provide a natural habitat for animals.
In this way, corn-ethanol is a perfect bridge to the future. It isn't harming anything even though it may not be the silver bullet some people wanted it to be. However, research is already moving beyond cellulosic ethanol to "advanced biofuels." These include butanol, (which can be piped along with gasoline unlike ethanol and has a higher energy density), and even some companies are closing in on making synthetic gasoline from cellulosic materials.
The point is that this highly charge and complex issue of ethanol, and transportation fuels as a whole, should not be taking lightly. TIME should not be allowed to stand as a voice of reason, swaying the court of public opinion while they only present one side of an issue. Hydrogen is much harder to make and requires much more energy, but people still talk about a future using fuel cells. Solar panels are still too expensive for the common person to have and their efficiency is only 30-40%, but we still want the scientists to improve on the technology. And finally, high-efficient light bulbs are great at saving energy but contain a very toxic substance -- mercury. I wonder how many studies have been done to see the effects of these new bulbs being disposed of improperly.
I'm no conspiracy theorist and I hate the back and forth of which is worse... the Oil lobby or the Corn lobby -- if either works against the benefit of the American people than they are both in the wrong. It is clear, however, that the oil industry is putting pressure on scientists and the media to try to derail ethanol in whatever way possible. Hopefully people will not be swayed by these "truths" offered up courtesy of TIME and will instead be able to see what the facts are -- that corn ethanol is a cleaner fuel that is helping the American economy.

Farmers Signal Big Year For Soybeans

2008-03-31T07:38:00.000-07:00

The results of the much anticipated survey by the USDA of 86,000 farmers has found that the number of acres of corn grown in the United States is projected to fall from 93.6 million acres last year to 88 million acres this year -- approximately what market analysts predicted. 13.2 million of those acres are projected to be planted right here in Iowa, down from 14.2 million acres last year. Farmers sighted several reasons for reducing overall corn acres such as high input costs and a desire to return to a more normal crop rotation schedule. Soybeans, on the the other hand, are projected to see 74.8 million acres planted nationally; up from 63.6 million acres planted last year.
One number to keep in mind with this realignment in ag. planting this summer is that two years ago in 2006 the United States planted 78.3 million acres of corn so the current numbers are still quite high and have the potential to sustain several industries as long as weather-related problems don't jeopardize the yields. What might be more interesting is to see in the coming weeks how commodity prices respond to the news. Corn seemed ready to go higher on the news as futures prices had already climbed into the mid $5 a bushel range. However, soybeans are considered quite volatile in this climate as a large soybean harvest this year could fill storage bins and, with a large crop projected to come out of Brazil this year, could push the price of beans lower.

Interconnected Agriculture

2008-03-29T11:17:00.000-07:00

The rise of the United States ethanol industry has had at least one significant impact -- for better or worse, ethanol has tied agriculture prices to the energy market. Now a large increase in speculation for oil leads to increased demand for a relatively cheaper fuel (ethanol), which in turn puts positive pressure on corn prices so as to ensure that enough acres are planted to satiate the demand.
Analysts in both industries will be watching closely Monday as the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) releases its predictions on summer acreages for corn and soybeans. The estimates are not binding and are based on surveys of farmers, coops, and seed distributors across the country. While many are speculating that USDA estimates will show a decrease in corn acres from the amazing amount of corn planted last year, the futures markets are already making a bold statement. This past week while corn prices dipped to around $4.80 per bushel and allowed ethanol margins to grow slightly, the futures prices for corn climbed to over $5.60 per bushel on the CBOT (Chicago Board of Trade). This indicates that commodity traders are almost positive that the USDA estimates will show a significant decrease in corn production this summer. Even though that will in turn put pressure on ethanol prices to increase, it may not be as bad a thing for corn acres to dip this summer as some might think. Last year saw more than 92.9 million acres of corn planted (which is the most since 1944). Analysts believe that the USDA will predict around 86 or 87 million acres of corn this year -- still a lot but off from last year. This is due to a very strong market for soybeans (nearly $15 per bushel), a need felt among many farmers to practice crop rotation techniques, and a very large increase in fertilizer prices that make growing corn more expensive than soybeans because of their greater need for fertilizer.
My point is that if some of the acres go back into soybeans, it will recharge the land and possibly bring down some of the nitrogen and phosphorous price increases we've seen over the last year. This in turn could allow for a gradual lowing of corn prices to manageable levels while still allowing profit margins to remain constant for farmers. With more and more cellulosic ethanol technology set to come online in the next two years, it would seem prudent to start moving away from a charged up and often speculation-dominated market and prepare for another rearrangement within these markets as ethanol production switches from predominantly corn to a mix of corn and other plant materials.

DDGS and E. Coli

2008-03-27T12:18:00.000-07:00

With the increasing amount of ethanol being produced, DDGS (dried distillers grains and solubles), seemed to be a great way for the ethanol plant to make a little extra money on the side and for livestock farmers to possibly offset some of the negative pricing pressures that corn-based ethanol places on their input costs. I know of a lot of farmers in this area interested in using DDGS blended into livestock feed as a cheap additive. But a Kansas State University report a few months ago brought up the possibility of a connection between the DDGS and e. coli occurrence in cattle. First of all, if the meat is prepared correctly there is absolutely no connection between possible e. coli abundance and food poisoning. Second, e. coli and other bacteria are commonly found within the animal digestive track and several are necessary for the animal's nutrition.
What's interesting is that no other research team had seen a similar connection between DDGS use and increased e. coli abundance. Today, the exact same group from K-State University announced the completion of a follow-up study which found that there is absolutely no connection between DDGS and e. coli. Don't ask me how someone screwed this one up in the first place but hopefully someone lost their job over it. The fact of the matter is that in this period where there is a highly charged debate over alternative fuels, (and rightly so), the public reaction to these studies can be enormous and the clean-up becomes a daunting task. This is why knee-jerk reactions to these studies are unwise at best. Hopefully this finding will allow farmers who are in a position to purchase DDGS without fear of e. coli proliferation and the pros and cons of ethanol can continue to be vetted correctly in the realm of science.

Saving at the Pump

2008-03-25T07:20:00.000-07:00

A great report out of Nebraska underscores my point from yesterday's post -- that ethanol is helping control prices at the gas pump. I think it is fantastic to watch the national average gasoline price of regular unleaded climb to $3.26 per gallon in the past week while a quick survey of gas stations here in central Iowa shows a price of around $3.05 per gallon -- a small decrease from last week!

And now, out of Nebraska, the conclusions are clear. With an average savings of 9 cents per gallon using E10 blends of gasoline compared to regular gasoline, the state of Nebraska saves consumers $4 million per month on ethanol! This is calculated by taking the gasoline usage in Nebraska, multiplying into the percentage that using ethanol (77%) and then multiplying that number by the average savings. Amazingly, most gas stations in Iowa offer between 10 to 13 cents per gallon savings on E10 blends and so the savings to the consumer could be even greater than $4 million per month. With E10 blends averaging 10 cents per gallon savings, it should definitely be the fuel of choice, even considering the 2.7% energy density deficit that it carries. All I can say is that although it sucks, filling up on E10 when it is priced at $2.99 sure doesn't feel that bad with other states paying a lot more for their gas.

http://www.mph-online.com/images/mph/208776/5055.jpg

Ethanol May Dampen Gas Prices

2008-03-24T06:11:00.000-07:00

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that some energy market analysts predict that ethanol production in the United States could lower gasoline prices during the summer driving season. Analysts from the Credit Suisse have been quoted as saying that the nearly 7 billion gallons per year of ethanol being produced in the United States will serve to lower gasoline prices off of their anticipated record high prices coming this summer. What is interesting is that even though both a downturn in the economy and record high corn prices have cut into ethanol profits and dampened drastic increases in ethanol production, an additional 167,000 barrels of ethanol per day capacity has been added this year. This amount is comparable to a full sized refinery and the lower costs built into ethanol compared to the record high oil prices have begun to put negative pressure on the price of gas. The analysts also predict that with the depressed economy, refiners and blenders who purchase oil will have greater pressure put on them to blend ethanol into more of the gasoline so as to keep prices low enough for consumers to keep buying.
The positive results are already being realized right here in Iowa. Although the survey of the national average of gasoline climbed 7 cents per gallon to $3.22 per gallon, E10 prices here in central Iowa have actually dropped about 10 cents per gallon from a week ago to settle around $2.99. Although I am positive both of these prices will climb as we enter June and July, what's really amazing is the profound affects we are seeing on the price at the pump and on the sometimes stubborn mindset of oil refiners and blenders who are being forced by ethanol to take a second look at what might be best for the consumer. Even though ethanol has a way to go before becoming the ultimate fuel of the future, I for one think ethanol needs to do nothing else to prove itself; given the monumental affects it has already accomplished.

For the Wall Street Article, follow the link below:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120631308439758089.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

CO/Hydrogen Separation

2008-03-20T09:25:00.000-07:00

New research out of the University of Wisconsin (Madison) has shown a significant step forward in fuel cell design. A fuel cell is envisioned to be used in a car either to use stored energy in a hydrogen bond to power a battery to run the car as the hydrogen reacts with oxygen to form water, or a fuel cell can be run on a hydrocarbon such as diesel along to create the hydrogen and power the battery with water and carbon dioxide emitted in that case. What these researchers found was that when hydrocarbons are used, the catalysts used to drive the reaction in the batteries would be "poisoned" because of the carbon monoxide binding to the platinum catalyst. Once these expensive catalysts are poisoned, they no longer efficiently react with hydrogen and oxygen to form water and produce electricity.
In an effort to curb this problem, Bryan Eichhorn and Manos Mavrikakis designed a special nanoparticle that wants to oxidize CO to CO2 in the presence of hydrogen. First of all, a nanoparticle is simply a small molecule or compound that is very small -- nanometers in length. And the term oxidize refers to the addition of an oxygen atom to the molecule or the removal of a hydrogen atom from a molecule. In this case, the nanoparticle catalyst wants to add an oxygen atom to CO to produce CO2. The researchers did this by using a particle of ruthenium surrounded by one or two layers of platinum. The researchers discovered the nanoparticle uses a novel chemical reaction mechanism that actually makes hydrogen react with oxygen at the start of the reaction. This intermediate then more easily adds an oxygen atom to CO and leaves the hydrogen unreacted to be used in the fuel cell reactions. Also, the addition of the ruthenium particle necessitates reaction temperatures only as high as 30C, which is much less than the 85C that past catalysts have required in order to oxidize CO in the presence of hydrogen.
Although this process is very interesting for fuel cell design, I think the study is a much more important showcase for biochemical ingenuity. By uncovering this new reaction mechanism, new enzymes/nanoparticle catalysts could be developed to further this process. Also, many lab and companies deal with gas stream separation on a daily basis; having the right kinds of tools to deal with the problem is essential and could allow for much more efficient reactions to take place.

For original paper, follow this link:
http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/v7/n4/abs/nmat2156.html;jsessionid=3FF0F02A8B76048826E3326602E98BCD

Dallas Texas Ethanol Terminal

2008-03-14T13:02:00.000-07:00

Within the debate over the pros and cons of ethanol, a lot of thought has to go into its transportation. Because of the phase separation that occurs with ethanol in gasoline, the possibility occurs for it to mix with small amounts of water in a gasoline pipeline and carry particulate matter. This is undesired and has eliminated the possibility of transporting ethanol through conventional gasoline pipelines. On the plus side, this has led to a railroad renaissance and produced talk of expanding rail capacity or upgrading existing lines to meet the need for transport. May 28th will see a huge step in upgrading the nation's rail systems due to ethanol's effect. Texas, and particularly the Dallas-Fort Worth area, is a huge potential market for ethanol. Providing cheap and efficient transport into that area would be a huge benefit to Midwest ethanol plants and a good way to jump-start ethanol usage in the South while cellulosic technologies come online in the area. US Development Group, in alliance with Union Pacific, has built a state of the art ethanol terminal in the Dallas area, set to open May 28th, which will be a major jumping off point for ethanol to end up in that city or to be trucked to other major areas in the state.
The company indicates that this state-of-the-art terminal was built specifically so that ethanol trains would not add any congestion to existing rail lines. Also, the terminal is capable of quickly offloading an 84-car unit train of ethanol with dedicated pipelines to truck terminals that will allow for quick and easy distribution of the fuel to gas stations. In recent weeks with the astronomical rise of first crude oil and now gasoline, and the relatively flat price increases in ethanol, blending 10% ethanol into gasoline will not only be a huge windfall for gasoline blenders but hopefully also for consumers. This is because since so much ethanol currently exists, the price per gallon is nearly a dollar cheaper than gasoline. Once blending occurs, retailers should offer at least 10 to 15 cents per gallon off of a gallon of E10 gasoline to offset the energy density decrease in ethanol and because their fuel is at least that much cheaper to produce.
With this efficient connection to the South the United States will see a much more widespread use of ethanol. With it will come more people enjoying the fuel but also a renewed need to work quickly to solve some of the problems that exist in the ethanol process before the fuel becomes more widespread and produced in higher quantities.

Ethanol Facts

2008-03-12T15:27:00.000-07:00

Instead of a news article, I thought I'd educate a little bit on some of the facts of ethanol in the United States as it currently stands for corn-based ethanol:

1) One bushel of corn produces 2.8 gallons of ethanol and 17-18 pounds of DDGS (dried distillers grains).

2) One acre of corn produces approx. 500 gallons of ethanol -- enough to fuel six cars for a year on E10.

3) As of 2006, approximately 30% of all motor fuels in the US had some ethanol blended into it.

4) Argonne National Laboratory concluded a study last year that found ethanol reduces greenhouse gases 35% - 46% over gasoline derived fuels.

5) Every 100 BTUs (British Thermal Units) of energy used to produce ethanol becomes 167 BTUs of energy in the form of ethanol.
(The reason this can occur is that the light energy gained from the sun during the growth of the plant is not included in the calculation -- an ethanol plant is approximately 38% efficient in recovering chemical energy).

6) Although an ethanol plant may be 38% efficient, our power plants generate electricity at an amazing 30% efficiency.

7) The United States is composed of 1.9 billion acres of land; 450 million is categorized as crop land and 580 million acres is pasture.

8) Hardware needed to make a vehicle into a flex-fuel capable car is $100-$200.

9) As of 2006 there were 4-5 million E85 capable cars in the United States (which is 2-3% of US car fleet).

10) An E85 blend of gasoline will decrease VOCs (volatile organic compounds) by 15%, carbon monoxide by 40%, nitrous oxide by 10%, and sulfate emissions by 80%. All of these compounds are greenhouse gases or smog related compounds. (This information from the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality).

Sources:

http://www.iowacorn.org/ethanol/ethanol_3a.html

http://www.energycommission.org/files/finalReport/IV.4.c%20-%20Cellulosic%20Ethanol%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf

http://www.deq.state.ok.us/factsheets/air/ethanolfs.pdf

Zymetis

2008-03-10T14:11:00.000-07:00

In what could become a huge advance for near-term cellulosic ethanol production goals, two professors from the University of Maryland are offering their solution to the issue of how to extract the sugars needed to make ethanol from cellulosic material. The claim is that a bacteria, isolated in marsh land near the Chesapeake Bay and names Sacharophagus degradans, is able to degrade cellulosic and chitinous materials such as corn stover, newspapers, or crab exoskeletons. The result is a fluid rich in sugars used by the yeast to produce ethanol. This advance would mean that conversion of simple-cellulosic feedstocks would be possible at a relatively low cost. The two professors have already started a company known as Zymetis to bring this conversion technology to market by the end of the year.
This is very good news and a great step in the right direction. Before celebrating, however, it would be nice to see some of the data on this microbe. First, it is hard to say how quickly the bug is able to break down the cellulosic material -- if it takes weeks such to break down some old newspaper then the costs saved using trash might be negated by the much larger tanks needed to digest the material in. Second, it is hard to say what the bacteria is converting the cellulose into -- for example, if it turns it all into glucose then yeast will love this bacteria like a PB&J. However, if it produces xylose or a glucose derivative that yeast are less efficient at converting to ethanol then there may be a problem. Finally, it is hard to say how much of the corn stover or newspaper can be degraded. In other words, if only half is being broken down then you will have a large slurry mess to deal with afterwords.
This technology is separate also from a more mid to long term technology known as gasification/ethanol production. Although gasification is said to be used in Coskata/GM's ethanol production schemes, this technology will be available in 2010 at the very earliest and there are still several problems to work out of the system between now and then. The benefits in gasification, if it can be engineered to work, is that cellulosic/chitinous material would not be the only materials utilized in such a system. Unlike Zymetis' method, gasification would allow the use of all material including lignin, which is seen in high proportions in woody plants.
Either way, the benefits of Zymetis' technology are that it will continue to bridge the gap between corn-based ethanol and cellulosic ethanol, which will hopefully take pressure off using only grain-based plant material in ethanol production and might serve to incorporate more cellulosic feedstocks such as switchgrass or trash that promise to make ethanol even more attractable because of lower GHG emissions.

For more info:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/03/new-enzyme-comp.html#more

Hydrogen Powered Cars

2008-03-08T14:30:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the intermittent postings going on lately, midterms took up a lot of my time. But, I'm back now, full throttle and have got lots to talk about. First is a press release from GM and Toyota that came out at the Geneva Auto Show stating that both companies feel that fuel cell technology (hydrogen) to power cars is not going to happen at all in the recent future and both companies are steering away from R&D in that sector. Both executives feel that the current technology that allows fuel cells to be produced is way too expensive for consumers and would be cost prohibitive. Instead, GM and Toyota are focusing on flex-fuel vehicles and hybrids in the near term and PHEV (plug-in electric vehicles) as a possible long term option after more research is concluded. Interestingly, Toyota and the rest of the hybrid producing companies saw a dip in hybrid sales for the month of February to 22,000 units sold. This is a year-on-year drop but could be a result of a sluggish economy in the United States as light-duty vehicles as a whole dropped nearly 6%, while the hybrid drop is closer to 2%.
With Toyota and GM's announcement, I think automakers and researchers should move away from fuel-cell technology research and focus on integrating hybrid and flex-fuel technology as seen in the Saab turbocharge vehicle that was referenced in an earlier post.

E20 Blends

2008-03-05T15:02:00.000-08:00

Research released today from the University of Minnesota has indicated that blends of 20% ethanol (E20) has no detrimental effect on performance or maintenance of cars and is safe to use in non flex-fuel capable cars. The tests were done on 40 models of cars over a 1 year period that tested performance and wear on components of the engine prone to problems in high-ethanol blended gasoline when used in non flex-fuel engines. The same group is still working on tailpipe emissions and fuel economy studies from these cars to see if they duplicate an earlier study by South Dakota State University that found blends of E20 or E30 actually increased mileage in non flex-fuel cars even with the decreased energy density in ethanol.
The key to this study from the U of Minnesota is that E20 seems to be safe for cars. Minnesota as a state has mandated that 20% of its gasoline be composed of ethanol by 2013, whether the blend comes from using E10 and E85 or from using E20 in all gasoline. However, in other states and particularly in order to get the whole nation on board, I think the big automakers such as Ford and GM should conduct the same tests on each of their new models. Once they get the results, they should sign off on each new car produced and include the warranty up to E20. Until they do this, I fear that the U of Minnesota will be nothing more than an interesting read for those that might have the courage and ability to put E20 in their tanks. Over the past few hours the internet sites devoted to ethanol have been full of comments saying that Minnesota studying E20 feasibility is foolish since much of the nation is not exposed even to E10. I disagree. I think that in the Midwest, going to E20 when we know it is a safe fuel for current non flex-fuel vehicles will allow more of the region to use the ethanol produced in our backyard and reduce the strain on transportation that the industry is experiencing. If Minnesota wants to go E20, this study has said that it is safe and I say more power to them. Hopefully more research will go into this aspect of the ethanol debate so that more states can join with Minnesota to encourage the usage of this environmentally friendly, domestic fuel.

Here is a link to a summary of the Minnesota report:
http://www.ethanolrfa.org/objects/documents/1559/state_of_mn_e20_executive_summary.pdf

My Dream Car

2008-03-03T16:20:00.000-08:00

I mentioned this before but I'm just so glad to see these things come to reality. While the energy debate lately has taken a turn for the worst -- i.e. people adopt tunnel vision and think that ethanol, hybrid, and hydrogen transportation fuels are mutually exclusive -- Saab and GM are bringing the debate back on track. Saab released its new concept car at the Geneva Motor Show, the Saab 9-X Biohybrid, which is a continuation on its biopower line of cars. The 9-X uses a turbocharged engine to downsize the engine and reduce the weight of the car, while utilizing the ethanol-capable systems and a sophisticated computer to correctly time the direct injection of fuel and allow the reduction of knock in the smaller engine. The result is a small engine that is equivalently powerful to engines much larger, (200hp and 207 lb-ft of torque), that reduces tail-pipe emissions when run on E85, (117 grams of CO2 per kilometer versus 105 g CO2/km on E85). Keep in mind that the previous numbers are tailpipe emissions, where the benefit of E85 is usually not seen -- ethanol's GHG emissions benefit is seen in the fact that the carbon emitted is the same as the carbon trapped during the previous year's growing season.

Although the car is completely flex-fuel so that any proportion of ethanol/gasoline can be used, the mileage is less when running on E85. The engine gets 48mpg on gasoline and 37mpg on E85, however the gasoline fueled engine does not perform as well as the ethanol fueled engine. The cherry that tops off this desert is the fact that GM and Saab didn't stop there -- they installed a state-of-the-art hybrid system to combine the flex-fuel, turbocharged awesomeness with the added benefits of the hybrid technology. This is exactly the kind of innovative technology that is needed to put a dent in oil consumption and GHG emissions. With these two systems combined, car performance doesn't need to be sacrificed (like we see in those stupid European one-seater cars that look barely safer than driving one of my old micro machines on the interstate), and the gasoline displacement would be significant. Not to mention the amazingly high fuel economy even while running on ethanol and it is definitely a car for the next generation.

This type of car is still a few years off but the ideas are great. GM and Saab added that they aren't stopping at this concept car -- turbo downsizing, cooled EGR, and cam phasing are all indicated as techniques to lower emissions and raise mileage in the ethanol fueled car. This could lead to a truly E85 car that boasts lower emissions and increased mileage over gasoline. All-in-all, this type of story should be a huge boost of confidence for the innovation that will be coming down the pipeline in the next few years.

Here is a picture of the car:

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/03/gm-introduces-s.html#more

Next Generation Biofuels

2008-02-28T10:40:00.000-08:00

The NSF (National Science Foundation) in conjunction with the DOE has unveiled what it believes is the roadmap to hydrocarbon biofuels production. Hydrocarbons are chains of carbon with hydrogens attached and you might commonly know these mixtures as gasoline, diesel, or jet fuel. Science and scientists have been unable to bridge the gap between plants and gasoline production on a large scale like what they've done with ethanol. NSF hasn't answered the problem, but it lays out in a concise form how hydrocarbons could be produced using biological and engineering techniques, (some of which they anticipate the pathways being elucidated or refined in order to maximize production ability). This announcement is good news for scientists, such as myself, who are already looking into the problem as it signals a new round of interest, and possibly funding, for projects dealing with next-generation biofuels. This is not to say that the age of ethanol is over, far from it, this is merely the gearing up of what might amount to several years of research to hopefully uncover the answer. What NSF provides is an umbrella of support to bring scientists and engineers together to solve a problem that will probably take a little of both.

Here is a layout of what they see as a "Roadmap to Hydrocarbon Biofuels Production"

For the full article, follow the link below:

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/02/nsf-publishes-r.html#more

Hydrogen/Fuel Cell Update

2008-02-27T09:13:00.000-08:00

Although I haven't ventured far into a discussion on the merits of hydrogen powered transport, (or lack thereof), I'll save that for another day. However, there is an interesting report coming out of Santa Clara Valley, California, where a test fleet of hydrogen--fuel cell driven buses are being tested as part of California's "zero-emissions" research. They report that the buses cost $51.66 dollars to drive per mile compared to $1.66 per mile for conventional diesel fuel. To be fair, hydrogen production technology and fuel-cell technology are still in their infancies and so I think it's great that there are tests underway to indicate whether hydrogen is a viable fuel and what improvements might need to be made. At the same time, I think this demonstration should show people that for all the beautiful talk of cars that run on hydrogen and pure, clean water gently wafting out of the tailpipe is not a reality by any means. The fuel itself cost 4 times that of diesel per mile and the parts cost nearly 160 times more per mile because of the large expense involved in fuel-cell technology.

The photo shows the zero-emissions bus pulling up to a hydrogen fueling station.

http://www.vta.org/projects/highres_buswpump.jpg

For the full article, follow the link below:

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/02/transit-agency.html#more

Ethanol Distribution

2008-02-26T09:19:00.000-08:00

The Renewable Fuels Association, a trade group set up to monitor and promote the distribution of ethanol in the United States, released its ethanol outlook for 2008. In later posts I plan on going into some of their projections, but for this post I wanted to look at a couple of cool tables and graphs. The first is seen below, which is a report on the current production levels of ethanol in millions of gallons, the second column is the capacity about to come online, and the third column is the projected total capacity for 2008. Although I knew that Iowa led the United States in ethanol production, I had no idea we were head-and-shoulders above any other state. This of course will change as soon as the cellulosic ethanol industry kicks in in the next few years and we see states like Georgia taking a larger role in ethanol production.

The second table is a map of the US showing the areas where ethanol plants exist and where plants are being built. I think it's very important to keep track of where these plants are being built because it shows the state of the industry better than most numerical values can. What I mean by this is that since most of the plants are centered in the Midwest, we can see that the ethanol industry is still very much dependant on corn for ethanol. However, notice the ethanol plants coming online in California, Idaho, Texas, and Georgia. These trends will signal the conversion between the corn-based ethanol industry that we see today and the cellulosic-based ethanol of tomorrow.

Biofueled Aircraft

2008-02-25T07:26:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend, Virgin Atlantic became the first airline to test its aircraft using a mixture of gasoline and biofuel. A flight from London to Amsterdam was loaded with 20% coconut and babassu oil into one of its four fuel tanks, making the flight a 5% biofuel blend. Although the numbers and distance traveled are small, it is encouraging to see that this idea is being tested. Richard Branson said that the flight was "historic" and while I think the enthusiasm should be downplayed a little bit, the fact that this type of blend could be used in the airline industry could be a sign of something major occurring in a few years. I say this because just last week Boeing announced that they would like to see more research going into aircraft capable of running on biofuel blends and more research into making these types of fuels.

The fact is that airplanes use a large amount of energy separate from the conventional gasoline loaded into our cars. With technology being developed right now to convert several feedstocks into fuels, such as trash, corn, switchgrass, and others, it will only be a matter of time before the capability exists for large-scale aircraft fuel. Recently the United States Airforce also stated that they would be interested in exploring biofuels as an alternative in their fighter jets. And the fact is, as far as I know, there is no way to use BEV (battery electric vehicle) technology in airplanes and so regardless of the direction cars go in, airplanes will still require an upgrade in their transportation fuels.

http://www.finfacts.com/irishfinancenews/article_1012696.shtml

Pipeline Study: Continued

2008-02-20T08:58:00.000-08:00

I was able to get my hands on the proposed pipeline route as laid out by Magellan partners. Skirting the Iowa/Minnesota boarder it will emerge out of the ethanol plant dense region and head towards the Northwest.

http://bioage.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2008/02/19/magellan.png

Pipeline Study

2008-02-19T13:25:00.000-08:00

A lot of what is fun and exciting, on one hand, and frustrating on the other is the fact that the ethanol industry is still very 'young.' This isn't to say that ethanol production is anything new; it isn't, but production of ethanol on this scale has never been done before. What we are experiencing now is the transition and growing pains that the industry is experiencing -- from feedstock production, ethanol plant design, production efficiencies, and so on. One of the biggest impacts is on transportation. Because ethanol can not flow through a pipeline with gasoline, it is being moved by boat, train, or truck. This has put a strain on the transportation industry and led to prices of ethanol that could be lower if a more efficient mode of transportation existed.
Enter Magellan Midstream and Buckeye Partners, two companies that will undergo feasibility studies over the next few months to determine whether a pipeline dependant on ethanol might be in the future. Although they caution that even if the pipeline is built, it would take several years to build the 1,700 mile proposed pipe at a cost of nearly $3 billion. This pipeline would run from somewhere in the Midwest up to the Northeast where it would end at a distribution terminal and trucks could go the rest of the distance, much like gasoline does right now. The group claims that the pipeline would be able to pump 10 million gallons of ethanol per day from the production sites in the Midwest to the consumer hubs in the Northeast. If this were to occur, it would be a big step in making ethanol cheaper and more available to the entire United States. Since one of the main ideas of producing ethanol is to decrease GHG emissions, a pipeline would only help make ethanol more attractive.

Scientific Clarification

2008-02-16T12:26:00.000-08:00

After last week's proclamation from Searchinger et. al that ethanol emits twice as much GHGs as gasoline does because of the release of soil carbon when turning grassland/forests into farmland, the real truth behind the numbers has been announced. Unfortunately for many, Searchinger's blatant disregard for scientific fact and wanton desire to generate a headline grabbing argument will probably sway a lot of people that are only slightly familiar with the problem towards a dislike and distrust of ethanol. What they will fail to see is that although the United States and the world needs to be constantly vigilant towards the deforestation or other environmental changes that might occur with large increases in biofuels production, this simply is simply not happening because of corn-based ethanol and it takes a person divorced from the reality that is the Midwest corn-belt to release a report such as Searchinger's last week titled, "Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases through Emissions from Land Use Change."
Luckily, none of you have to take my word on this issue. Scientists at the Argonne National Laboratories at Oak Ridge, Tennessee have written a very insightful response to Searchinger's piece totally refuting his results. Although they point out, as I would, that increasing ethanol production towards 15 billion gallons per year could affect these senarios, current fact proves that this is not occurring right now, which negates Searchinger's claim that ethanol is a GHG emitter and bolsters the fact that corn-based ethanol reduces GHG emissions 16% over gasoline... not to mention that this is RENEWABLE carbon.
Anyway, back to the Argonne report, they found that while demand for corn from the ethanol industry has increased, this has not affected domestic supply and exports of corn have maintained the 2 billion bushel per year level that occurred pre-ethanol demand. Furthermore, the research from Argonne saw little land-use change in the United States due to increased corn demand because of ethanol and refuted Searchinger's claim that transitioning to cellulosic feedstocks would have an adverse affect by forcing corn onto marginal land. Argonne studies have found that more than 1 billion tons of biomass are currently available on marginal land, (such as trees, switchgrass, shrubs), and so these two feedstocks towards making ethanol would not compete.
The bottom line is that studies such as Searchinger's should have been welcomed. If he had released the report by saying that the study was a scenario of what could occur, then a discussion of more moderate increases in corn-based ethanol production or of regulations towards ensuring that imported ethanol doesn't originate from countries that practice deforestation. Instead of doing something like that to promote responsible dialogue, Searchinger chose to grab headlines and to scare people into disliking ethanol for no good reason. (I saw him interviewed last night and he didn't present the arguments with any caveats towards how the report should be interpreted).
I'm just glad that Argonne and others moved quickly to point out that Searchinger's report should be taken for what it is -- a look into what could happen, not what is going on. With the increased production of ethanol and the evolving debate over its merits and problems, this will not be the last report that seeks to scare and confuse the public. Hopefully the truth continues to be told.

For the response from Argonne labs: (Read it if you've got the time, it's very good)
http://www.transportation.anl.gov/media_center/news_stories/20080214_response.html

BP and Dupont

2008-02-15T06:27:00.000-08:00

Oil giant BP and chemical giant Dupont teamed up several years ago to develop a new approach to ethanol. Their solution, at the insistence from BP, was to produce butanol instead of ethanol. Shown below is a representation of the two molecules for those of you that might be... "less chemically inclined:"

Ethanol
CH3–CH2–OH

Butanol

CH3–CH2–CH2–CH2–OH

Notice how the difference between the two alcohols is the additional carbon groups on butanol. Butanol is known to have an octane level comparable to gasoline (lower than ethanol) but has a much higher energy density than ethanol. Tests show that if butanol were to replace gasoline in the engine of currently produced cars, the energy penalty would be around 10%, compared to 27% for ethanol. BP tests also showed the butanol did not have the phase separation problems that ethanol has and so butanol could potentially be pumped in conventional gasoline pipelines. Also, BP preliminary tests show that butanol can be added to a conventional car up to 16%, which is beyond the current 10% allowed for ethanol. (Theoretically a flex-fuel car would run on 85% butanol as well).
Although the most recent announcement from BP and Dupont on 60 new patent applications for their butanol process, the target date for beginning the production of butanol (2010) is still a ways off. Problems with the production of butanol include a very low level of butanol produced by the microorganisms because of several bi-product formations. Also, the butanol is toxic to the organism, much the same as ethanol can be at high levels, and so proper distillation methods need to be developed. Finally, the BP/Dupont partnership has focused on conventional bacteria to produce butanol, at least preliminarily, and so they are not taking advantage of any new cellulosic technologies such as improved microorganisms or gasification technologies. It seems to me that the best method would be to combine both streams into one -- produce butanol using a microorganism shown to grow on multiple feedstocks.
The bottom line is that while ethanol transitions from corn-based to cellulosic, we will also see a gradual transition into fuels that have been termed 'second-generation,' and 'next-generation' biofuels. Second-generation biofuels are those like butanol, which are gasoline substitutes like ethanol but with potentially better qualifications to replace gasoline. Next-generation fuels look to the future where the potential exists to produce synthetic gasoline that could be an exact replacement to imported gasoline made from domestic feedstocks. Next-generation fuels also refer to non-hydrocarbon based fuels such as hydrogen. It will be very interesting to monitor the transitions, struggles, and technological advances that will allow one, some, or all of these fuels to flourish.

For the original article on BP/Dupont research:

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/02/dupont-and-bp-p.html#comments

Carbon Capture

2008-02-14T08:05:00.000-08:00

Researchers at the Los Alamos labs have announced their engineering method to capture carbon dioxide from the air and turn it into transportation fuels in a process that promises to be carbon negative. The beauty of this work is that carbon dioxide capture from air is very difficult because of the large amounts of air that has to be pushed over the catalyst that captures the carbon dioxide, which requires large amounts of energy. Los Alamos claims that they are able to reduce the energy demand by 96% in their new process that, from what I can understand from their press release, uses small tubing to drastically increase the surface area for diffusion and allow for much more amount of carbon to be captured in less air.

After the carbon dioxide is captured, researchers could use bacteria and known technology to produce methanol and from their produce other transportation fuels such as ethanol or butanol. The key is in the numbers, and it is hard to tell whether the claims out of Los Alamos point to a solution for carbon capture. The group states that the energy required to capture the carbon from air is .35kWh per kilogram of carbon dioxide. Factor in the additional energy needed to ferment the bacteria and the added energy might not be a beneficial as originally thought. Either way it's a great step in the right direction. Think about it -- using carbon capture technology on power plants or possibly even cars and then converting that trapped carbon back into transportation fuels would not only reduce the GHGs in the atmosphere but would provide a cheaper process to make fuel -- so long as the energy needed to capture the carbon is low. And so far, this just hasn't been proven... yet.

Below is a picture of their schematic diagram:

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/02/los-alamos-deve.html#more

Trash to Ethanol

2008-02-13T09:35:00.000-08:00

A group in California is trying their luck at ethanol production from trash wastes. Bluefire Ethanol plans to open its first plant in Lancaster, California later this year and will construct this plant right on top of a landfill. The researchers plan to use this as a pilot ethanol plant to see if the process works. There is enough interest in the idea that the Department of Energy (DOE) will seek to invest $40 million in the ethanol plant that will use the cellulose in thrown out materials such as paper that would otherwise go into the landfill but this time it will be used to make ethanol.

Although skeptical at first, the idea might actually be pretty ingenious. They must use an acid pre-treatment step (composed of sulfuric acid) in order to liberate the cellulose (sugars) that are in the landfill wastes. This process can be expensive, and thought to be inferior to gasification because none of the lignin that might be present will be used. But it is in a different part of the processing that this plant might have a "leg-up." The project plans to use the lignin that can't be converted into usable sugars to burn in order to generate at least 70% of the heat and electricity to run the plant (instead of using coal or natural gas). For the remaining energy, the plant will harvest the methane gas produced at the landfill to power the remaining parts of the plant. This could not only save the company money and protect it from volatility, but it also significantly reduces the ratio of fossil fuels used to ethanol produced making the entire process that much more environmentally friendly.

Bluefire Ethanol is not alone in taking a hard look at cellulosic ethanol -- Range Fuels in Georgia is in the process of testing a wood to ethanol technology. Coskata, (as well as others), are looking into the same idea but using gasification as a way to liberate more usable sugars. With Bluefire only building a 22 million gallon per year ethanol plant, it'll be interesting to see what their preliminary results are as to whether the process is economical. Once that is done, the process will have to be scaled up to see whether the process can handle a 100 million gallon per year ethanol plant.

Below is Bluefire's engineering diagram:

http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/bluefuelarkenol_flow_diagram.gif

For the original article:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=trash-based-biofuels

Recycle Your Exhast

2008-02-12T06:56:00.000-08:00

Something that's really cool and, if not perfected in the next few years, something I'd be very interested in getting a piece of the action is what researchers at Georgia Tech announced today. Although a VERY long way away from any meaningful goal, the team of researchers announced that they would attempt to engineer a system for carbon capture and recycling in small stationary systems. What this means is that they want to trap the carbon dioxide released from a car when burning gasoline or ethanol and then use a catalyst to generate hydrogen that can be used as a secondary system to power the engine. The economics and feasibility of this are still so far off that this type of idea is probably only kicked around in Popular Science type areas, but the idea is very cool. In this study, the engineers envision a removable system for carbon capture that can be returned to a central location for further processing of the hydrocarbons (like a reverse gas station). What would be really cool is if a special processing unit could be built in the car with a mix of methane and carbon dioxide loving bacteria that could produce gasoline or ethanol and form a looped system to extend the use of the gasoline indefinitely. The system would in no way be "closed loop" because of heat loss in the engine (which means we wouldn't be able to do away with gas-stations entirely), but a perfected system like this would be a phenomenal step in the right direction.
Similar to this idea, researchers in Wales recently produced a "green-box" that works essential the same as what the Georgia Tech team is interested in except they combine genetically modified algae to the system in order to produce biofuels from the captured emissions. Both Georgia Tech and Wales are examples of awesome technology that could be a huge step forward (and would be a great complement to hybrid cars), but it's still way too early to tell how long it will be before the systems are economical and feasible.

Here is a diagram of what the Georgia Tech researchers envision:

Here is a link to a Reuter's site discussing the Welsh inventor's "green-box:"

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSL1847347220070719?src=071907_1249_ARTICLE_PROMO_also_on_reuters&sp=true

2008 Crop Estimates

2008-02-11T16:36:00.000-08:00

Even the USDA guessed wrong on the acreage that went into corn and soybeans in 2007 and had to revise their totals, so don't take my word as gospel. But if the latest survey of Iowa and Nebraska farmers is any indication, 2008 should see a return to the 50:50 ratio of corn to beans seen in Midwest farms. Of the 2,500 farmers surveyed, the consensus was an increase in soybean acres by 12% and a decrease in corn acres of about 5%. The survey, conducted at the 53rd annual Iowa Power Farming Show, can be used to test the waters of what might be coming in the next few months in terms of planting soybeans or corn. From these results, it looks like the large push towards corn-dominated agriculture that was seen last year might be subsiding and a return to more normal agricultural practices will occur. A 50:50 ratio is important to balance the energy intensive corn with the nutrient-providing legume (soybeans). Rotating these crops insures correct nutrient balances, along with decreased fertilizer needs.
Although farmers in the survey sited several possible reasons for planting more soybeans this year, it might not be too hard to narrow down a few key points. The first is that in the past year, corn prices have increased 30% while soybean prices have rocketed up by 81% of their price. Add to this the fact that fertilizer prices continue to rise and soybeans begin to look more and more attractive. In the end, I think it makes good ag. sense to continue to rotate and protect the land as best as possible. Rotation the crops not only allows for more protection of soil nutrients, it also prevents a farmer's exposure to volatility that might occur in one of the markets. (Although this is unlikely because soybeans and corn have historically been tied to a 2:1 price ratio).
One more interesting fact that came out of this survey was that large scale farmers, (people farming around 10,000 acres), were less likely to reduce their corn acreage in the coming years. This is interesting and a point that I would like to comment on in future posts -- how commercial-scale farming is impacting agriculture in this volatile pricing period, particularly among cattle prices.
I'll end by repeating that I think 50:50 rotations are good policy, but it will be interesting to see if the corn acreage in the US falls by 5% across the board. If we are only going to get around 310 million acres in corn this year, we could be in for a bumpy ride in terms of corn stocks. Let's pray for good weather...

A beautiful shot of Iowa corn from: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2007/1/prweb499927.htm

Membranes to Replace Distillation

2008-02-08T08:26:00.000-08:00

Distillation is by far the most energy intensive step in the production of ethanol and it consumes large amounts of coal or natural gas (depending on the plant), which comes at a high cost to the company. A group of researchers in the Netherlands has developed a membrane that can separate the water out of ethanol; bypassing a lot of the energy needed for distillation and potentially being a great step forward both for ethanol economics but also for the energy balance/GHG emissions that people have pointed out so vocally in the press. Although the idea of developing a selective membrane to filter the water out of ethanol is not new, (a group in Canada has also done this, among others), tests on these membranes has shown that their effectiveness can not climb about 40% pure anhydrous ethanol.

Although the Dutch group was able to develop a stable membrane capable of separating large amount of ethanol from water, the procedure requires temperatures above 150C. This plus the fact that the membrane is unstable below 60C and their claims that the process is energy efficient seems hard to prove. Keep in mind that the boiling point of ethanol is 78C, which is the temperature currently needed for distillation. Although using current technology this still only results in approximately 96% ethanol and necessitates an additional step in anhydrous ethanol is needed, the Dutch team claims to be able to displace some of the energy needed for distillation, which I can not verify and have some large doubts. Either way, a cool technology with big potential but it may be a few more years off before the engineers can get a better handle on it.

A computer generated image of these nano-sieves.

http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/Journals/CC/article.asp?doi=b718082a

Original publication:

http://www.rsc.org/delivery/_ArticleLinking/DisplayHTMLArticleforfree.cfm?JournalCode=CC&Year=2008&ManuscriptID=b718082a&Iss=Advance_Article

Biofuel's GHG emissions

2008-02-07T15:15:00.000-08:00

Although there could be a very large post refuting each claim point-by-point, I'm going to start with this one and make it brief and to the point. I thought we had moved away from the days of irresponsible scientific work by Pimentel, (the only researcher to declare that corn-based ethanol has a negative energy balance back in 2005), but from the looks of the Des Moines Register and other papers, this is not the case. A recent report released in the journal Science claims that corn-based ethanol will in fact increase the amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. There are a few problems with this report that makes it smack of Pimentel. Let's be clear, I am totally for responsible scientific work, and I'm not claiming that these researcher's numbers are incorrect, however, their assertions are incorrect.
The reports released today and by Pimentel are incorrect because they incorrectly label ALL corn-based ethanol production. Pimentel used corn yields from Florida and New Mexico (average for the entire United States), along with the amount of fertilizer and water that would be needed to grow the corn in those states. This is wrong because no one is contemplating growing corn in those states -- that is where cellulosics, wind, or solar will prevail. So Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois, and Minnesota -- the states where corn is grown for ethanol are not correctly represented in Pimentel’s study.
This latest study is incorrect in representing biofuels, particularly in the United States, because it claims that deforestation due to biofuels will increase GHG emissions. Let me be clear, the expansion of sugar cane in parts of Brazil, Palm Oil in Indonesia, and other examples in other areas of the world is a problem that should be closely monitored. This does not and will not happen in the United States so the researchers, by using numbers like "a 50% increase in GHG emissions," is like taking some kind of crude average that makes little sense and should have little to no impact on the United States. At this time, we import very low amounts of biofuel. 17.4 million gallons of ethanol, in fact, was imported into the United States last year. 17.4 million!!! For you math geeks out there, that's a whopping 0.25%. The United States DOES NOT import its ethanol, thanks in part to good policies such as an import tariff that prevents tropical contries from exporting ethanol grown on deforested land. What these researchers should be doing is making sure that the corn grown in the Midwest and the cellulosic feedstocks that will be used in the future are benefiting the GHG emissions over gasoline. If they had done that, they would find a value commonly agreed on as between 16% to 20% decreased GHG emissions for biofuels compared to gasoline, rather than focus on the kind of headline-grabbing research that they did, the whole United States and the world would be better off. If Indonesia is causing increased GHG emissions because of their biofuel usage, or India's biofuel usage, than THEY SHOULD stop producing biofuels, not the United States.
And finally, I know I said this would be short but looked what happened. A final point, though, is that the real thing that is lost in this bickering over GHG emission reductions is that ethanol and other biofuels were never meant to be a monolithic fuel. I mean this in two ways -- One is that ethanol is to be used in conjunction with new technologies such as hybrids, turbocharged engines, and general conservation to reduce our use of petroleum. Although greenhouse-gas emission reduction is a big part of the reason for this reduction, it is definitely not the only reason. 1) Energy independence in a world that may be approaching a general decrease in oil supply. 2) National Security in a world ravaged with wars and hostile dictators in most oil-rich regions. 3) Agricultural Security in how much ethanol has meant to the Midwest and the United States as a whole to agriculture. 4) Decreased GHG emissions, which is approximately 16% for corn-based ethanol grown in good old Iowa.
So before a researcher goes and tells you that the nitrogen fertilizer, water requirements, and low yields to grow corn in Oklahoma will result in higher GHG emissions than oil, think about what they are saying. Who cares!! What's that got to do with the price of tea in China? Tell us something that is relevant or don't say anything at all. The report in the journal Science is misleading and should be carefully analyzed to realize just how fantastical the estimations that they use could somehow encapsulate all corn-based ethanol production.

For the report in the Des Moines Register, follow the link below:
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080207/BUSINESS01/80207028#gslPageReturn

Coskata Update

2008-02-07T06:43:00.000-08:00

Here's a little update on the movement of GM and Coskata to bring cheap cellulosic technology to the mainstream with commercial scale production:
Coskata has teamed with a Kansas-based company named ICM with the hopes of building a commercial scale cellulosic ethanol plant by the later part of 2010. ICM is a company that specializes in ethanol plant design, engineering, and production, and will help Coskata move from the research phase into the production phase for ethanol. Although the Coskata/GM team is moving steadily forward, 2010 is still a couple years off and they are not the only ones beginning to test their products on pilot-scale plants. Companies in Florida and Idaho are also trying their own proprietary blends and it is still too early to tell whose technology will be the cheapest, most efficient, and win out in the end.

Switchgrass Impact

2008-02-04T07:15:00.000-08:00

CBS out of Iowa City and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is reporting that NASA intends to spend $738,000 on a study of how planting large acreages of switchgrass might have an impact on the upper Midwest and Great Plains states. The study will be in collaboration with South Dakota State University and will look into questions posed as to how large areas of switchgrass in Northern Iowa, the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Western Minnesota might have an impact as the ground is switched from corn/soybean rotations into switchgrass.

Although I think that this problem is relatively limited, since land fertile enough for corn/soybean rotations probably will not be wasted by converting the land into a switchgrass field that will yield less net profit to the farmer, I am pleased to see that the possible pros and cons of switchgrass are being aggressively looked into before undergoing a large shift in Midwest agriculture. The study will answer questions into the possibilities that large stands of switchgrass might increase the occurance of wildfires and could affect seasonal weather patterns. Even if they come to these conclusions, wouldn't restoring much of the upper-Midwest to perennial prairie grasses simply be a reversion to previous weather patterns? For this reason I will be interested in learning the results of this report.

http://www.iowadnr.com/energy/renewable/switchgrass.html

Update on Iowa's Ethanol Economics

2008-02-02T13:43:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to quickly do an update on a post I had this past Wednesday on the economics of ethanol to the Midwest. It seems as though the post was fortuitous since the very next day (Jan. 31st), at the Second Annual Renewable Fuels Summit in Des Moines Iowa, John Urbanchuk reported his findings on the impacts of ethanol to the Iowa economy. Urbanchuk, a respected economist out of Pennsylvania whose analysis on ethanol has gone all the way to the US capitol, reported that ethanol has added $12.7 billion to the Iowa economy. That's approximately 10% of our gross domestic product! These numbers back up the findings by Iowa State economist David Swenson and highlight the fact that, without ethanol, folks out here in the Midwest would definitely be in a much tighter squeeze than we are right now.

For the original article:
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1239110/ethanol_a_boon_to_rural_economies/

Iowa's Wind

2008-01-31T07:11:00.000-08:00

Although this blog is designed to concentrate on the impacts and realities of ethanol, taking one post to discuss something close to home in my case isn't all that bad. What I'm taking about is Iowa's wind power. Evidently the Northern Plains are ideal in many areas for the generation of power from wind. Below is a map generated by the Department of Energy showing wind speeds across the US. Although Iowa doesn't have the highest average wind speed, it is one of ten states in the nation (shaded by a dark black line) with the potential to generate wind power when factoring in environmental and land use problems.

Although there are plenty of factors that could be problematic with wind power including;

1) Its unreliability to supply a steady stream of power to the grid.

2) Land usage as many wind turbines go up in fields, preventing whole areas from being used in the production of corn or soybeans.

3) Possible water flow problems in the fields arising from wind-turbine placement.

But taken as a whole, I think that wind has the potential to be a complement to ethanol in the nation's push towards divorcing from fossil fuels. Although the argument that wind energy doesn't provide steady power has led some to claim that even with a large wind infrastructure, the necessity for the same capacity of coal power-plants would still exist, the potential for this problem to be solved in the future with sophisticated battery systems could eliminate this problem. The good news is that the Des Moines Register is reporting today that Iowa's largest utility, MidAmerican Energy is in the process of installing hundreds of wind turbines throughout the state this year with the goal of bringing 726 turbines online by year's end. This would add 1,124 megawatts of wind generated power, enough to power 390,000 homes -- close to the total number of people in the Greater Des Moines area (I have to say that because Des Moines won't annex their suburbs so the actual city of Des Moines only has 200,000 residents even though the urban sprall pushes the number up close to half a million).

With this added capacity, MidAmerican claims that 25% of its power will be generated from renewable sources (without drastic increases in utility costs), which will push Iowa even closer to being the renewable energy capital of the US. I for one am hoping that groups continue to work together to improve wind turbines to limit their encroachment into farming and to improve electrical storage methods in the future so that wind might be a more viable form of renewable energy. There, that's my venture into the world of wind energy. Let's hope it works out for Iowa, and for the rest of the United States.

For the article in the Des Moines Register:

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080131/NEWS/80131013

Ethanol 'Glut'

2008-01-31T07:00:00.000-08:00

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) is reporting that ethanol stocks in the United States fell 2% in November, a correction from the widely held position that refinery capacity coming online would result in too much ethanol being supplied to the market. The stocks fell 229,000 barrels to 11.1 million barrels of ethanol in the United States even though ethanol production has jumped 45% this year alone. Although not a huge change, it signifies the importance of ethanol and how refiners and blenders alike are beginning to use the fuel more pervasively. Analysts attribute the drop in ethanol to the huge increase in capacity that led to a large drop in ethanol prices. This in turn encouraged blenders to blend ethanol into their gasoline as a way to cut prices. With the fall in ethanol stocks, we should see the price of ethanol begin to steady, particularly since the cost of feedstocks such as corn have not dropped in recent weeks. Either way, it seems that the industry has proven the critics wrong, for the time being, as ethanol demand has kept up with the supply.

For the original article:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKN2914910820080130

DOE Cellulosic Ethanol

2008-01-30T08:41:00.000-08:00

The Department of Energy (DOE) is announcing today that they will invest $85 million in three pilot project plants to determine the success of early techniques in producing cellulosic ethanol. This project by the DOE is distinguished from their earlier investment in commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol trials that included Poet's Emmetsburg, Iowa plant. However, this latest round of DOE investment may allow for greater testing of cellulosic feedstocks found outside of the Midwest -- such as wood waste or other agricultural wastes. This would allow, if successful, for cellulosic ethanol to be the bed-rock of the ethanol industry in the South and Western parts of the United States much like corn has been for the nation's midsection. The three companies will have small scale plants in Boardman Oregon, Commerce City Colorado, and St. Joseph Missouri and will employ both chemical and thermochemical techniques to liberate the sugars that reside in the cellulosic material. Although this will be a good step forward in developing and encouraging data into cellulosic ethanol production, the technology remains very new and the technology to produce ethanol from cellulosic materials economically has yet to be proven.

For the original press release, follow the link below:
http://www.agweb.com/get_article.aspx?pageid=140902

Ethanol Economics

2008-01-29T09:00:00.000-08:00

With Bush's focus on the economy last night in the State of the Union address and Congress' moves to push through a stimulus package, I am already tired of hearing weak economic news day after day. Although finding a silver lining can be hard these days, it's not all bad right now in the Midwest. This could turn quickly, but Gov. Chet Culver (IA) has mentioned on several occasions that the Iowa economy is strong particularly compared to the rest of the nation. Of course, living in the Midwest, we won't be exposed to the extreme highs and extreme lows of a housing boom such as they experienced in Florida, but Iowa has maintained a relatively low jobless rate compared to several states in the Midwest in the past few years. About five years ago, when farm income was desperately low, rural people from all over flocked to the cities. Suburbs of Des Moines blossomed as small towns all over Iowa grew dark. However, while some states like Michigan have experienced record unemployment around 7%, Iowa has enjoyed relatively low unemployment near 4.8%. So why is Iowa's economy enjoying steady 2.6% growth these past few years?

There are simply too many numbers and factors that go in to the economy to point to one cause and say that is definitely the one factor involved, but a new report out of Nebraska is shedding some light on the possibility -- ethanol. The study, "The Economic Impacts of Ethanol Production," points out that state income taxes and property taxes from ethanol plants reached $2.2 billion in 2007 and are expected to reach $3 billion in 2008. That is for Nebraska alone! With Iowa and South Dakota sharing a sizable stake in the ethanol industry with Nebraska, this equates to a lot of money helping the Midwest economy. United States Senator Ben Nelson, a Democrat from Nebraska and ethanol proponent said that the full economic effects of ethanol are factored in (from increased trucking, rail, and construction jobs), the full benefit to the United States approached $40 billion annually! Furthermore, the ethanol produced is able to displace enough oil imports to reduce the federal trade deficit by $13 billion annually -- a pretty sizable sum.

Finally, the USDA reports that, (through the positive pressure on corn and soybean prices), have been able to reduce federal farm subsidies by $12 billion over the last two years -- from $24 billion in 2005, $16 billion in 2006, to $12 billion in 2007. All of these factors together make a clean, homegrown renewable fuel just that much more appealing. Although there are several hurtles to overcome that our scientists are hard at work on right now, ethanol is benefiting the United States, and it will definitely help the state of Iowa reach a 'soft-landing' in this period of economic uncertainty.

The ethanol world is currently centered around Iowa, but with cellulosic ethanol being developed don't count out the importance of the plants that you see in California, Louisiana, and coming soon -- Florida.

http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9149882

For the original report from Nebraska's NTV news:

http://www.nebraska.tv/Global/story.asp?S=7789619

Illinois Ethanol Blends

2008-01-28T07:52:00.000-08:00

Moving off of a recent study by the University of North Dakota, Illinois state senators are considering increasing the amount of ethanol blended into their gasoline from 10% up to 20%. This would be a huge benefit for the ethanol industry by virtually doubling the demand for the fuel where ever these mandates are created. Illinois representative Aaron Schock referenced the fact that this measure would insure competitively high prices for farmer's products while at the same time reducing America's dependence on foreign oil, in pushing the bill towards debate. Coming at a cross-roads between corn-derived ethanol and the move towards cellulosic feedstocks, there may be some moves to slow the passage of this bill in the Illinois legislature. Corn acreage and prices have been in large flux over the past month or so and creating this kind of instability in the market could be a problem. Furthermore, until the study results from the University of North Dakota's fuel economy studies can be verified by the Department of Energy, it might be unwise for a legislature to push consumers to accept blends higher than E10 in non flex-fuel cars.

For the original article, follow the link below:
http://www.pjstar.com/stories/012508/ELE_BFJFB4SE.028.php

Venter's Magic: Synthetic Genomics

2008-01-25T19:22:00.001-08:00

Something that probably won't register much more than a blip in the ethanol news but will have serious impact occurred today when J. Craig Venter, the man who was the first to fully map the human genome by mapping his own, announced that his lab had established a completely synthetic genome that could potentially sustain life. Their lab's goal is to be able to build a genome, (a long string of DNA that makes up genes capable of supporting life), capable of supporting the most basic functions of a living cell. Although some question the ultimate goal of the study and claim that it is some kind of mad-scientist's quest to develop the power to control life, the more probable goal is something that could impact the world of biofuels in the years to come.
Building a synthetic genome means that a lab would know which basic set of genes, "housekeeping genes," are needed to support life and would then be able to insert one or two genes needed, say, to produce ethanol, or butanol, or hydrocarbons. What you would have created is a bacteria cell with a genome created in a lab with the sole purpose being to live and produce the desired product. This is the kind of research going on at J. Craig Venter's lab, Synthetic Genomics.
The announcement today was the discovery that they had successfully built a very small synthetic genome, (582,970 'base pairs' or pieces of DNA), and were able to place the genome into the bacteria that the synthetic genome was modeled after, mycoplasma genitalia. Although this is a great step forward and a huge jump in the number of base pairs connected synthetically, by comparing it to the number of base pairs in the human genome, (3.1 billion representing approximately 50,000 genes), it's easy to see that they are nowhere near having the capability to produce extensive genomes. This might not be a problem if they are only trying to make a synthetic genome with the fewest number of required genes (which is currently unknown so the exact size would be hard to guess at). Also, they inserted the synthetic genome into a bacteria they modeled the DNA off of, AND the bacteria still had its original genome. Let me repeat that, they do not know how to remove the original DNA, replace it with the synthetic genome, and then get the bacteria to 'reboot' with the new DNA. They are only able to get the host to live with its old genome and then function with the new synthetic DNA.
So what impact is this science having right now? Well, they are making definitive progress towards their goal; a goal that could potentially have industry altering effects from biofuels to medicine production to understanding the essential components of our DNA in a more extensive way. Right now, the breakthrough is still on the horizon, but it has definite potential for ethanol production and the goal may be closer than we think.

Article in the Chicago Tribune on Venter's announcement:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/health/chi-syntheticlife_25jan25,1,6501125.story

Website for Synthetic Genomics:
http://www.syntheticgenomics.com/

Grocery Store Prices

2008-01-23T18:31:00.000-08:00

Chuck Schumer, the democratic senator from New York, has called for a repeal of the import tariff on ethanol because he feels that the surge in demand for corn-based ethanol in the United States has led to large increases in grocery store prices. He is supposedly especially concerned about a commodity dear to some of his constituents in up-state New York -- milk, which has increased substantially in the past few weeks. In coming to these conclusions, Senator Schumer not only perpetuates one of the greatest known and disproven myths about ethanol, but it shows how little he understands this very complex and dynamic situation that ethanol finds itself in.
First of all, let's get the facts straight. Ethanol demand has increased considerably in the United States leading to increased demand for corn and a subsequent competition for acreage, which has driven up prices for commodities such as corn and soybeans. This strong uptick in ag. products is what Schumer and other critics of ethanol hold as the reason for surging grocery prices. If this correlation is true then we should see a large price increase in the consumer price index CPI over the last few years relative to the prior string of years in which corn and soybean prices were relatively low. The USDA, through their Economic Research Service, found the CPI increased 2.6% between 1996 and 2005, and then only 2.3% in the year 2006. They went even further to record that the CPI for meat products in 2006 only increased by 1%, which would refute any claims that the CPI isn't responsive to corn based products. Iowa State University study these trends and found that a 30% increase in the price of corn would only have a 1% increase in grocery prices.
Experts offer that energy prices for transportation (such as oil and gasoline) along with increasing labor costs constitute a much larger piece of why milk, eggs, and other food staples have increased.
But the above response is only one half of why Chuck Schumer is not only wrong in this case, but proven his naivety in this debate. The other half is the debate about whether or not to have a tariff on imported ethanol. I feel that people don't realize that the main reason the tariff exists isn't for protectionist measures, it is to prevent the Caribbean countries and Brazil from gaining taxpayer benefits that the ethanol industry currently enjoys. What I'm referring to is the 51 cents per gallon blending credit the government pays to blenders in order to establish a market for ethanol in gasoline. The tariff is set at 54 cents per gallon and is used to prevent other countries from exploiting the 51 cents per gallon taxpayer credit that they would otherwise enjoy. What Schumer needs to do first is debate the merits of a 51 cents per gallon tax credit -- to which I see the benefits both of having it available and of doing away with it. However, as long as the credit exists, we need an import tariff to prevent Brazilian and Caribbean nations from exploiting our tax dollars with the 51 cents credit.
Finally, I can't resist using a great analysis refuting the food versus fuel arguement from American Fuels (http://americanfuels.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-01-19T17%3A51%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=7). The analysis shows that the amount of corn produced, subtracted by the amount of corn used for ethanol, has actually increased since 2005 -- from 9.6 billion bushels up to 10.5 billion bushels. This would seem to negate the argument that some kind of severe shortage of corn has put positive pressure on other industries.
One thing for sure is that politicians definitely make the decisions in this country, but that doesn't always mean that they have the best facts or present the pertinent arguments. Schumer would be doing his state and country a disservice if he follows knee-jerk reactions against ethanol just to assuage fears about rising milk prices.

Original article refuting Sen. Schumer's remarks:
http://www.grainnet.com/articles/American_Corn_Growers_Association_President_Bolin_Disagrees_With_NY_Sen__Schumer_on_Ethanol_Tariff-52927.html

USDA analysis of trends between ethanol and CPI:
http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/news/ng.asp?id=80295-ethanol-food-prices-corn

Brazilian Rainforest

2008-01-22T09:11:00.000-08:00

One of the greatest fears one should have in developing a new technology is that the benefits would be erased by some alternative impact the new technology has on the world. To be more specific, it is imperative that while ethanol production develops and matures as an industry that we watch out to prevent widespread deforestation in tropical areas, or work to relieve stress to food markets that biomass crops might have.

With this is mind, there is some very good news from Brazil. Once on the minds of soybean farmers in the Midwest who worried that Brazil would use deforestation to plant larger and larger tracks of soybeans, the fear has now shifted to the environmentalists who worry that encouraged sugar cane growth might take over land covered by the rainforests in the Amazon region. The problem with this is that the forests hold a lot of carbon dioxide and removing them would eliminate environmental gains made by planting a biomass crop for use as a renewable fuel. Luckily, farmers in Brazil are realizing that the land underneath the forest canopy is devoid of carbon and most nutrients since these things are held high up in the trees and plants. Soybean farmers are realizing that they have to employ intensive fertilization efforts even to get 4 or 5 years of planting soybeans on land formerly maintained by the rainforest.

Professor Peter Suurbeir, a researcher working in the Amazon region, has released his findings that increased ethanol production in Brazil has not resulted in increased deforestation of the rainforest. Rather, he points to decentralized land title claims that allow timber companies to pouch the land for wood and then leave the land vacant. However, his findings state that these lands are not employed in the subsequent production of sugar cane for ethanol.

Image showing the Amazon rainforest in green, with sugar cane production area shown in red dots, far to the South of the forested areas.

http://www.pr-inside.com/ethanol-production-brazil-is-not-causing-r396664.htm

Original interview with Peter Suurbeir can be found at:

http://www.ethanolstatistics.com/Expert_Opinions/Brazilian_Ethanol_and_the_Displacement_of_Cattle_210108_1.aspx

Natural Gas Find Benefits Ethanol Production

2008-01-21T16:05:00.001-08:00

Professors at Penn State University are announcing the discovery of a significant natural gas reserve tucked in the Northern Appalachian mountain range. According to Terry Engelder, a professor of geosciences at PSU, the natural gas find could hold as much as 516 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. To put that into perspective, the United States uses approximately 30 trillion cubic feet of natural gas per year and the amount of proven natural gas reserves in the United States has been dropping over the past few years. This find, if realized, would be worth trillions of dollars to the United States' energy economy, according the Engelder.

What this means for the ethanol industry is that a major energy requirement to produce ethanol is now in greater abundance and will hopefully be available for a cheaper price. Natural gas prices are currently $15.1 per thousand cubic feet, up 61% from the same time 4 years ago. Since the use of natural gas in the production of ethanol, (used in the distillation process and in drying the DDGS), can account for approximately 2/3rds of the total energy and a large part of the cost to produce ethanol is used to purchase natural gas, it would be great news to the ethanol industry if gas prices could recede. To put things into perspective, it is estimated the 16% of the natural gas used by the state of Iowa is used by our ethanol plants. Although scientists are working hard to displace the need to use natural gas, and some ethanol plants have been built to work using coal instead of natural gas, coal power has notoriously negated much of the greenhouse gas emission benefits realized using ethanol and new technologies to displace the use of natural gas have not yet matured. Until that time comes, ethanol plants will rely on natural gas and moderating prices could have a large beneficial affect on the industry, especially in these times of tight economics.

Below is a picture of the Marcellus Shale, where the new natural gas field was found, from the United States Geological Survey USGS. The Highlighted area is the entire Appalatian area of interest to natural gas production, while the Marcellus Shale encapsulates the lower New York and upper Pennsylvania areas.

http://certmapper.cr.usgs.gov/noga/broker.jsp?theProvince=67&thePage=play&theServlet=NogaNewPlayResultsServ

Original article from Penn State University:

http://live.psu.edu/story/28116?rss=49

Source used for establishing natural gas prices:

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/ng/hist/n3010ia3m.htm

Agricultural Realignment

2008-01-20T10:26:00.000-08:00

Iowa's Secretary of Agriculture and former president of the Iowa Corn Grower's Association is pleased with the way the state's agricultural industry is headed. Bill Northey says that he "sees optimism grow" in those that are involved in agriculture in the state and points to a renewed attraction for younger people to take over the family farm as they grow older. Northey credits ethanol demand and a weak dollar for spurring exports and allowing the price of grain to climb to all-time highs (31% rise in corn prices and 86% rise in soybean prices from 2006 to 2007). This is great news for Iowa and the Midwest, where only a few short years ago the talk was all about how quickly farmers, and especially their children, were fleeing farms for the towns in Iowa or the cities in surrounding states. The fact was that farming in the 90's and early 21st century was a gamble that was making break-even profits at best. Although input costs such as nitrogen fertilizer and diesel have risen along with grain prices, the excitement that this time in agriculture is bringing to the Midwest seems to be the shot in the arm that the industry and the state needed. Hopefully, this trend can continue without a serious freefall in prices back to previous levels. For those of you who are not from the Midwest thinking that this is an issue simply for "those hicks" out in Iowa, think again. Profitable agriculture allows for prices to moderate and should eventually allow the United States Congress to lower subsidy payments to farmers, which would save money in the federal budget. The fact of the matter is that although some subsidy payments are still needed, you would be hard pressed to find a respectable family farmer in Iowa that wouldn't have supported Sen. Chuck Grassley and Sen. Tom Harkin's push a few months ago in the Senate to limit subsidy payments to farms at less than $250,000 per year.

Iowans want the steady and sustained growth of the family farm without the encroachment of commercial agriculture into our state. Hopefully this recent round of excitement in the industry will give the chance for this dream to be passed on to one more generation, and allow Iowa to be filled with "fields of opportunity."

I encourage those that are interested to read the article and interview with Bill Northey in the Des Moines Register. He has several good points including the renewed effort that Iowa must undertake in order to ensure that conservation efforts are not lost in this new era of excitement in farming.

A beautiful seen of the Iowa countryside with same corn fields in the fore-ground.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2007/1/prweb499927.htm

For the original article, please follow the link below:

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080120/BUSINESS01/801200318/-1/SPORTS01

Ethanol from Rice

2008-01-19T16:14:00.000-08:00

A few posts ago I mentioned the state of the Japanese ethanol industry, or lack thereof, but a recent article in Reuters caught my eye and I'd like to take a second to give you an update on what is going on with ethanol in Japan. Although biofuels are not and will never be a major factor in Japanese gasoline, because of the small land area and low biomass potential, the Japanese government is not totally turning its back on the fuel. The fact that Japan must import nearly all of its petroleum necessitates a keen desire to leave no stone unturned. And so the Japanese government is going to pay half of the $15 million dollars to construct an ethanol plant in Niigata Japan under the control of the National Federation of Agriculture Cooperative Associations (or Zen-noh in Japanese). For those of you familiar with ethanol economics, you may quickly realize that $15 million dollars for an ethanol plant is a real steal. Well, the answer is yes and no. The reason this plant's capital costs are so reasonable has a lot to do with the fact that, when finished in March 2009, will only be able to churn out 220,000 gallons of ethanol per year. Compare that with some of the smallest ethanol plants around the Midwest with the capability of producing at least 30 million gallons of ethanol per year and you can see that the Japanese are not expecting to change the face of their automotive industry with the plant.

The idea behind a small biofuels plant is to allow the biomass waste from Japanese extensive rice crop to be used in a constructive way to try and offset Japan's thirst for automotive fuels (Japan is third, in gasoline fuels consumption behind the US and China, at 15.8 billion gallons per year). Forth if you count the state of California. But back to the ethanol plant, another reason for the ethanol plant is that low profitability in Japan's rice fields due to cheaper imports cutting out their bottom line has forced many farmers into the major cities leaving behind abandoned fields. The Niigata plant hopes to take advantage by planting non-edible rice that has a higher conversion ratio into ethanol to be used in their plant. The Japanese government is also sponsoring two other small (3.3 million gallon per year) ethanol plants to be built in the Northern Japanese island of Hokkaido using the same rice to ethanol concept.

If all works out by 2009, I guess this just might legitimize the term "rice-burner" used so often in the United States.

Below is a beautiful picture of the Western suburbs of Tokyo with Mt. Fuji just visible on the horizon.

Picture courtesy of: http://nilaworld.org/index.php/2007/07/24/japan-bridging-scholarships/

For the original article from Reuters, follow the link below:

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUST33749

Best Land in the World

2008-01-18T07:30:00.000-08:00

As the numbers come in for 2007, it looks like land values for farms in Iowa will set a new record. The average acre of farmland in Iowa increased 22% in value over the past year alone ($705) to reach a new average high of $3,908, according to Iowa State University extension economist Michael Duffy. Although it still isn't as high as the price adjusted for inflation from 1979, the increase is substantial. Duffy attributes the 1979 farm price increase to a surge in demand for grains and soybeans from the Soviet Union and points out that a similar phenomenon is occurring today. The increase in demand for ethanol along with a surge in demand from China has made this fertile land all that more desirable. While increased assessed land prices will surely mean higher taxes for the individual farmers along with rent prices, it has caused the net worth of farmers from across the Midwest to increase dramatically. Duffy adds that although areas such as rural Illinois have seen land investors come in, the most recent trend is for local farmers to reinvest this new net worth in more land to expand their operations and keep a majority of the farmland locally owned. Let's keep it that way.

For more information check out:

http://farmindustrynews.com/shop-office/business/farming_land_grab/

Oil From Corn

2008-01-16T14:53:00.000-08:00

Researchers at Iowa State University have announced that they are working towards a method to extract oil from corn during the ethanol production process to make biodiesel. Tong Wang is working on this method that would allow for the production of ethanol at the same rate, but would extract the oils from the corn during the early stages of fermentation so that the oil could be used for a co-product; biodiesel. The idea is that during the treatment of corn that is to be fermented, oil is released some of it remains associated with the solid material leftover from fermentation that become dried distillers grains (DDGS). According to Wang, this extra oil in the DDGS is bad for cattle and can lead to swine putting on softer fatty tissue that is undesirable in the meat. In this way, Wang could down two birds with one stone if he is successful in eliminating excess oil from DDGS and is able to make money off of the oil by producing biodiesel.

Wang and Iowa State University are working with FEC Solutions, a Des Moines based energy company that specializes in the research and implementation of technologies for ethanol and/or biodiesel plants. Currently a lot of research going on in the United States related to ethanol has to do with the idea of valuable co-product generation in order to boost revenue. Co-products can involve anything produced of value during the production of ethanol and include DDGS, biodiesel, carbon dioxide (for use in the beverage industry), starch, and high-fructose corn syrup. Typically ethanol plants are divided into two categories -- 'wet mill' and 'dry mill' ethanol plants. The definition of a dry mill ethanol plant, which is by far the most numerous type, is a plant that take dry corn and grinds it into flour. The flour is then used in the fermentation process to make ethanol and DDGS are the solid co-product. A wet mill ethanol plant separates several products from the corn in a liquid phase that results in co-products such as starch, high-fructose corn syrup, protein, and of course ethanol and DDGS. Although a wet mill ethanol plant would sound like the way to go for most companies, the capital costs in building a wet mill ethanol plant are much higher than a dry mill plant because of the intricacies in separating the various valuable products. For this reason, even if a wet mill plant would be profitable after selling its coproducts, it is too costly for most people to acquire the number of investor willing to take a risk in such a plant. This is why currently in the United States only around 1% to 2% of the total ethanol plants are wet mill plants.

My personal comments are that what Wang is doing at Iowa State University is a good idea. The search for new markets is what drove entrepreneurs to ethanol in the first place and it could result in a large boost for ethanol producers. However if he doesn't develop a system that can be used in existing ethanol plants or in a way that will avoid large capital costs, the idea will have trouble getting off the ground -- particularly in the current situation where new investors are hard to come by for new ethanol plants.

Railroad Renaissance

2008-01-16T08:08:00.000-08:00

7.6 billion gallons is a large volume to try and distribute throughout the United States. As the ethanol industry continues to grow, allowing product to be efficiently transported will allow prices to come down and more people access to ethanol. In the absence of a dedicated pipeline, ethanol has relied on the railroads to load large 'unit trains' capable of hauling up to 3.25 million gallons of ethanol at a time in the 100-plus rail cars. According to Reuters, nearly 75% of the ethanol plants currently producing ethanol in the United States have the ability to load these large trains at their site. However, very few rail terminals at major hubs (such as in California or Florida) have the ability to unload these massive trains. The benchmark seems to be that for efficient transportation, all 100 cars should be unloaded in approximately 24 hours so that the train can remain active. Years of neglect have resulted in an outdated railroad that has a much smaller capacity than it had even in the 1980's.

Ethanol may be the kick that the railroads need to boost profits and update their services. Since the latest RFS passed the Congress mandating increased use of ethanol, industries such as the rail industry have been able to plan more investments because of the guaranteed increase in ethanol production. Union Pacific's vice president Paul Hammes was quoted by Reuters as saying that they will move to significantly increase the ability of terminals to accept unit trains full of ethanol in the next few years. Hopefully this will allow for a general renewal of the freight-railroad market in the United States and maybe even, with a lot of investment, the ability for railroads to provide better stand-alone passenger rail service that won't be affected by freight cars tying up the lines.

Here is a neat picture of an ethanol unit train entering Kansas City:

http://www.stuorg.iastate.edu/railroad/Reports/KansasCity06.html

Below you will find a link to the original article by Reuters:

http://www.reuters.com/article/GlobalAgricultureandBiofuels08/idUSN1552869720080115?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0

Futuristic Automobiles

2008-01-14T17:37:00.001-08:00

Following the Detroit auto show, where it seemed like every car marker was bending over backwards to create the next step in 'clean energy,' I wanted to know exactly what the current trends are in car manufacturing. Below is a chart from the Department of Energy, released Dec. 2007, and can be found at: http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/facts/fotw459.html

The above graph is a great representation of the current trends in the United States, in terms of what type of car is being produced. Keep in mind that my personal point of view is that one car should combine several 'green' qualities to qualify as the car to bring us into the future. However this chart only shows the distinct types by number of models sold. Although it is no surprise that hybrid and E85 flex fuel vehicles (FFVs) are on the increase, pure electric vehicles and compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles have been reduced over the past 3 years to almost zero models offered. Pure electric vehicles, also known as battery electric vehicles (BEVs), are cars run only on electricity by plugging the car into an outlet, something that isn't catching on quite yet. CNG, something that I never thought was a great idea, is probably suffering from a strong increase in natural gas prices and so the idea of fueling a car on natural gas has become less appealing.

Finally, as I've stated in earlier posts, while hybrid/E85 vehicles are a great way to go towards conserving gasoline usage and using less imported fuels, BEVs are not the way to go at this point. To underscore this point, there is a succinct graph from Michigan State University that highlights a common misconception among consumers -- 'that electricity is a very clean and efficient fuel, much more so than ethanol or gasoline.'

http://www.fullflexint.com/pdfs/Net_Energy_20Basics.pdf

As the graph clearly shows, the amount of fossil energy (non-renewable energy such as coal or gasoline), compared to the amount of energy that comes out is astounding. Not only does it take more fossil energy in the form of petroleum to produce gasoline, but electricity is only about half as efficient! Before people jump all over this post with comments I want to clearly point out that this is a snapshot in time -- numbers change and things become more efficient. Let's just make sure we continue to monitor the facts so that we all can make the correct decisions in the future.

Electrical Switchgrass?

2008-01-14T06:45:00.000-08:00

Although most of my posts are centered directly around the production of biofuels, a slight foray into a closely related topic never hurts. Recently I was asked about an energy company's goal of co-firing their electricity generating plant with coal and switchgrass. After a little digging, I found that the Chariton Valley Energy Cooperative -- a locally owned utility in Eastern Iowa, was testing out how replacing 10% of the coal with switchgrass would have on electricity production and emissions of gases. For a little more background, Chariton Valley is running this project under the control of Alliant Energy, which serves most of the Eastern Iowa area.
Chariton Valley ran its tests at its plant in Chillicothe, Iowa with continuous biomass (switchgrass) burn for 1,675 hours to collect data (approximately 2 months). In this amount of time 15,647 tons of switchgrass was burned, eliminating the need for 12,060 tons of coal. The reason that these two numbers differ reflects the lower energy density of switchgrass (approximately 23% that of coal). In other words, according to Heller et. al, adding 10% biomass to cofire with coal will only result in an increase of 8.9% in total energy delivered. However, there was some good news from the study. The Department of Energy, which monitored the pilot-project, recorded that the power station had a drop of 62 tons of sulfur dioxide and 50,800 tons of carbon dioxide from the plant when using 10% biomass, which is a drop of approximately 10% in both emissions categories.
That was the good news, here's the bad news. According to Chariton Valley's own website, electrical companies might be able to pay farmers $45 per ton of switchgrass produced (emphasis on might be able). One acre of land will produce approximately 11.5 tons of switchgrass (or a $517.5 value). Keep in mind that the ability for Chariton Valley to purchase switchgrass at $45 per ton is in part due to the ability to produce 'renewable energy credits' that can be used to sell to other companies as a carbon-offset program. (This test run produced 19,600 credits for the company). But back to switchgrass... if you are a farmer making $517.5 per acre on switchgrass and corn, let's say is $4.00 per bushel, (even though it is more like $4.80 per bushel right now), you might want to go over the economics real quick. If a farmer can get 180 bushels of corn per acre in a good year, that would be a value of $864 per acre shattering the $517.5 per acre price for switchgrass.
I regret that the value of an agricultural product rarely if ever reflects the intangible benefits it provides -- such as a better habitat for the environment, less soil runoff, or a decreased need for nitrogen fertilizer inputs. If these categories were factored into the price, switchgrass would probably win hands down, but they don't. And because of this, switchgrass is definitely a losing proposition for farmers in the very fertile region of Eastern Iowa. Hopefully this technology can be used in states where switchgrass might be the only option for sustained plant growth such as Western Nebraska, but until prices can go above $45 per ton for switchgrass, the farmer will be losing money by switching entire fields to the tall prairie grass.

To review my sources or get more information, follow the links below:
1)
"Corn Prices." Chicago Board of Trade. 14 Jan. 2008. 14 Jan. 2008 .
2)
"Economic Benefits." Chariton Valley Biomass Project. 14 Jan. 2008 .

3)
Heller, Martin C., and Timothy A. Volk. "Life Cycle Energy and Environmental Benefits of Generating Electricity From Willow Biomass." Journal of Renewable Energy (2003). 14 Jan. 2008 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V4S-4BM6BJ4-1&_user=716796&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000040078&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=716796&md5=5dcd72e55f02e8ffd504ef5d13b5a873.

4)
"State Energy Program: Iowa Utility Mixes Switchgrass with Coal in Cofiring Test." Department of Energy. 7 June 2007. 14 Jan. 2008 .

GM Gasification

2008-01-13T12:26:00.000-08:00

Announcements coming out of the Detroit Auto-show today are not only focused on innovation as far as the car's engine is concerned. General Motors, who along with Ford are emerging at the forefront to push for more ethanol use in the United States, has announced the purchase of part of cellulosic ethanol technology pioneer Coskata Inc. This company, based in Naperville Illinois, is pioneering a gasification technology where cellulosic biomass (encompassing nearly any kind of plant material) is turned into carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide gas. This gas stream is then fed into a reactor where special microorganisms are able to grow on the gas and produce ethanol. According to Coskata, the patented microorganisms have already been made and initial ethanol production will begin in 2011. Independent research done at Argonne National Laboratory has revealed that this process of gasification using Coskata's bacteria is able to produce ethanol using only 1 gallon of water per gallon of ethanol produced (compared to the 3 to 1 water to ethanol ratio currently realized). Furthermore, current ethanol production results in 1.6 times the energy in ethanol compared to the energy input necessary while this new technology yields 7.7 times the energy. These kinds of gains in energy and water responsibility are great news for Coskata, GM, and all the other researchers striving to bring some form of this technology into being a reality. And it doesn't hurt that this new technology allows for ethanol production to cost approximately $1 per gallon!
GM is quoted as saying that the impetus for investing in companies such as Coskata came after the most recent Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) passed by Congress that let the automakers know that ethanol is here to stay. Hopefully this "trickle-down effect" will continue past companies such as GM and Ford, who are finally beginning to take the lead in establishing new automobile technology, and finally begin to affect the gas station and the consumer. Both GM and Ford have lamented this week that until more gas stations are equipped to handle E85, the concept cars that could provide such a breakthrough towards efficient ethanol use will not come into being. Currently only 1,400 out of 170,000 gas pumps in the United States are equipped to handle E85.

Ethanol Rollercoaster

2008-01-12T14:18:00.000-08:00

A couple of posts ago I tried to map out the net profitability of an ethanol plant in the United States. I try not to get bogged down in numbers and details so that people can quickly read and get the most out of what I have to say. I found a very good and succinct picture that I'd like to show that illustrates the point I was making even better.

http://ethanolproducer.com/article.jsp?article_id=3635

This graph, from DTN's ethanol page, reflects the tight economics of an ethanol plant. Even though there have been several months particularly this past summer in which net profits have been very good, the situation has taken a turn for the worst. This really isn't a reflection on ethanol, or an inability to compete with $100 a barrel ethanol, rather it is a reflection of the changing economy that is now coupled to the swings of the oil and energy markets. I wanted touch on this idea again because of what happened this past week on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) -- corn prices reached $4.95 per bushel. This is a reflection of investors moving to secure enough acres to satisfy the varying demands of corn, soybeans, and other agricultural products. This is not to blame one single industry for the shortfalls -- even this past year as acreage became tight the United States exported record amounts of corn and soybeans to China, so there is definitely supplies to feed people in the future. The problem isn't necessarily a shortage of any one grain, but at $4.95 per bushel, corn becomes an increasingly expensive feedstock for an ethanol plant trying to get by on tight earnings. This situation might result in a slight pullback or consolidation in the industry to try to absorb these potential loses if the price of corn doesn't recede.

What this information proves is that researchers need to continue to work hard in moving from an ethanol industry dependant on corn, towards one that can use multiple feedstocks based on their costs -- wood chips, switchgrass, and even corn all combined into a single effort to balance our need for fuel and other end products.

Ford 'Escapes' Traditional Establishment

2008-01-11T08:30:00.000-08:00

One thing I can't stand is when people close off their minds and concentrate on one aspect of a problem and end up totally ignoring the real solution. Often, the solution involves several key factors that come together to solve the problem. In moving towards energy independence or GHG emission cuts there is not one reasonable scientist, engineer, or other intelligent civilian that would tell you there is one single solution. While a concise vision of our transportation fuels future will allow for the appropriate infrastructure to be built, there should be absolutely no competition between hybrids and flex fuel vehicles -- they are both extremely important components to build a successful renewable fuels fleet in the United States.

So what really gets me is car companies seemingly refusing to incorporate two fuel-saving technologies into one car. This is why Ford's announcement that they had built an E85 capable hybrid Escape back in January of last year was such a great step away from the status quo. As a personal note, I actually got to see this car in person and was very impressed with its size and design. What's more is that, when powered by 85% ethanol and with the benefits of the hybrid drive train, the car can get 40% more gas mileage (12mpg more) than regular escape models and emits 25% less GHGs from its tailpipe than hybrid escape models (this is on top of the carbon capture accomplished by the corn used to make the ethanol). Although Ford doesn't plan on mass producing these vehicles until a better E85 infrastructure is created in the United States, it is great that one of the companies is joining two important components of our renewable fuels industry.

As a final thought, and something that I would like to write about in the future, Ford is leading the way in a third technology. It's something I touched on a few days ago in my post on turbocharging engines run on E85. Ford seems to have the first model of this technology, known as Ecoboost, which will be placed in their 2008 Lincoln. According to Ford, the Ecoboost's turbocharging engine can run on E85 (although it doesn't have to), and results in a V4 having the same power as a V6 and a V6 having the same power as a V8. All this while accomplishing 20% better fuel mileage. With the cost savings in the system, Ford says that the initial cost of purchasing a car with Ecoboost will be recouped within 2 and a half years. This might not sound great but when compared to how long the average hybrid takes to recoup the up-front costs (12 years) the Ecoboost may be able to penetrate developing markets such as China or India much faster than hybrid vehicles.

Ultimately, we need to see a vehicle created with hybrid technology, as well as an Ecoboost engine in the United States. I think the vast increase in fuel economy and the ability for American to pay up-front in order to receive benefits later on will allow the car to be a success here in the States. Hopefully Ford and the auto industry will respond to the fact that consumers want a solution.

http://media.ford.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=22474

Ethanol OK According to EPA

2008-01-10T07:08:00.001-08:00

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a study on tracking emissions data and fuel use from 1995 to 2005 across the United States. The goal was to monitor US gasoline while ethanol phased out MTBE. In conjunction with this phase-out, the report also monitored the effect of mandatory reductions of sulfur in reformulated gasoline (RFG). The conclusions of the report is that as ethanol was phased into a 10% blend in gasoline between 1995 and 2005, tailpipe toxic emissions dropped 4.7% and harmful, smog forming nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions decreased 5.7%. This is encouraging because previous calculations on ethanol use pointed towards a drop in GHG emissions but a wash on the amount of NOx emissions compared to regular gasoline. This is not due to a component of the ethanol in the gas tank, but rather a reflection on the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released at the ethanol plant when drying the dried distillers grains (DDGS). So the net NOx emissions from growing the corn, refining the sugars into ethanol, and then emitting them from the car is approximately the same as gasoline. However, what the EPA's study shows is that although scientists must continue to study ways of reducing or capturing VOCs at the ethanol plant (which is going on right now), the use of ethanol has significantly reduced air pollutants and smog in populated areas. The study also found that MTBE replacement by ethanol has had a profound effect on ground water contamination. This study is encouraging since one of the most important things in developing a new industry, such as ethanol, is to make sure that the costs don't outweigh the benefits. This isn't just in relation to energy, or gasoline usage, but we also must take care not to have harmful environmental outcomes that would make ethanol less beneficial than gasoline. With this EPA study, it looks like ethanol is on the right track and further development at the ethanol plant level, will make this product even better to the air and water we depend on.

To view the report in its entirety, please follow the link:
http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d/0a599cb6f1360cbd852573c50054e64e!OpenDocument

Switchgrass Surpasses Expectations

2008-01-09T11:56:00.000-08:00

After Congress' announcement that we would have a new RFS (renewable fuels standard) set at 36 billion gallons of ethanol, the need to push hard towards the next generation of plant derived ethanol became increasingly more important. Although corn has been an excellent stepping stone to establish the market and infrastructure for a renewable fuels industry, the need to create ethanol from other biomass sources is needed if we are to stabilize the tug-of-war going on for acreage in the heart of the midwest. One solution is to grow non-grain plants in climates not suitable to corn or soybeans, thus by-passing the potential problems of using too much fertile land for energy rather than food. Switchgrass, a tall perennial grass, has been looked at as a potential replacement because of its ability to grow in areas with lower rainfall totals, lower fertilizer inputs, and its ability to provide a low-erosion habitat for wildlife.

Ken Vogel, a USDA scientist working with the University of Nebraska has just completed a 5 year study looking into the ability for switchgrass to act as a cellulosic biomass feedstock for ethanol. As Vogel points out, the successful renewable fuel substitute should "1) have superior environmental benefits, 2) be economically competitive, 3) have meaningful supplies to meet energy demands, and 4) have a positive NEV" or (Net Energy Value). One of the desires to conduct his farm-scale study was to see if there would be a difference in the values found in real-world situations versus those found on tiny (5 square-meter) test plots.

In fact, Vogel and his team found that the values were even better when applied to their farm scale plots -- mainly because the values did not correlate on a strictly linear level when scaled up. For example, the point out that diesel input values will remain constant for many aspects of the grow of switchgrass, no matter what scale the switchgrass is grown on. What they found was that switchgrass decreased GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions an average of 94% over gasoline, and in some cases neared 100%. Furthermore, the NEV was positive -- approximately 700% was the final ratio indicating that the energy of the final product was more than 7 times the total energy needed to grow the crop. These results seem to qualify Vogel's four criteria to a successful renewable fuels feedstock. One hurtle remains in the development of switchgrass, however, and that is the development of efficient and inexpensive technologies to extract the energy into the production of ethanol. While some plants are capable of using saccharification and hydrolysis to release sugars in the switchgrass, this is very energy intensive and yields slightly less ethanol per acre than corn. However, once the technologies from the ethanol plant's perspective is found, it will be good to have this kind of research to point agriculturalists in the right direction as to what sorts of crops to grow.

To read the article by Vogel et. al in its entirety, go to http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0704767105v1

Here is a picture from the report showing the farms 10 farms used in the study and their relatively low soil moisture content.

Vogel et. al 2007

Ethanol Infrastructure

2008-01-08T11:20:00.000-08:00

The ethanol industry got a large boost today as Magellan Blending announced plans to build blending terminals in its home state of Oklahoma, as well as Georgia and Delaware. This is important to the ethanol industry because of the relatively few terminals capable of blending ethanol due to the high upfront investment needed to build the blending station so that the exact blend (either E10 or E85) can be made. Not only is this important for simply the logistical nature of storing and blending ethanol into gasoline, but it also allows for cheaper prices in ethanol to occur. This is because ethanol lacks a nationwide pipeline like the one gasoline has, which necessitates the use of trains to hail the ethanol to its destination. The problem isn't the train, which can be very efficient and relatively cheap when hauling 100 cars of ethanol, but most blending stations that exist now don't have the capability to accept the train because they don't have any tracks. This creates the need to haul the ethanol by truck, making the process more inefficient and more costly to the consumer. The Magellan station will be able to accept rail ethanol and so should be able to streamline the process of getting ethanol ready to run in your car.

Just for fun I've included a couple of pictures showing ethanol blending stations and equipment below.

http://www.eureferendum.blogspot.com

http://www.macdesigninc.com/images/Mdi_Micro_Blend.JPG

Japanese Ethanol

2008-01-06T19:27:00.000-08:00

Approaching the Group of Eight summit in Hokkaido, Japan, that was to be a time to discuss the next step forward in combating global warming, the Japanese government was dealt a serious setback. The Daily Yomiuri, one of Japan's premier newspapers, is reporting that the Japanese government's plans to blend 3% ethanol into the gasoline sold on a sugar cane rich island in the Southern part of Japan has fallen through. Evidently, Miyakojima is situated in the Okinawa Islands in extreme southern Japan and has a large amount of sugar cane, which is able to grow well on the tropical island. The government wanted to blend 3% ethanol into the 19 gasoline stations on the island to help offset some of the greenhouse gases seen as contributing to global warming. However, the Petroleum Association of Japan stepped in and was able to convince Nippon Oil Corporation, the owner of 16 of the 19 gas stations on the island, to refuse to blend ethanol into their gasoline. Because of the staunch opposition from the oil industry, the government was forced to give up plans on the island for the time being.

Japan does have a problem -- because of its size and population density, biofuels simply will not work using conventional cellulosic materials on the island. That is why technologies such as electric hybrids or ethanol derived from municipal wastes are in such high demand. They simply must move towards the ideas that might cost more than the plant-derived materials the United States or Brazil can use, because they have too. Either way, I guess we better hope that the Group of Eight nations have a better plan to move forward on preventing GHG emissions at their summit because, if left up to the Petroleum Association of Japan, the Japanese will continue to drive on regular gasoline.

To follow up with the original article, follow this link to the Daily Yomiuri:

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/business/20080106TDY02313.htm

Below is a map of the Japanese Islands (Okinawa in the lower left hand corner), and the prefecture of Okinawa pictured with Miyako Island shown.

http://www.unitedplanet.org/quest/images/countrymap/map_japan.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image :Miyakojima_in_Okinawa_Map.gif

ADM Carbon Sequestration

2008-01-05T13:14:00.000-08:00

Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) announced an ambitious project yesterday to further improve the net carbon balance in ethanol production. At its plant in Decatur Illinois, the company will spend $85 million including money from the Department of Energy to pump carbon dioxide released during the production of ethanol into an underground sandstone formation that will store 1 million tons of carbon dioxide over a three year period. This would be particularly important for ethanol plants that heat their fermentors using coal rather than natural gas. The reason is that coal is a much cheaper and less volatile form of energy while natural gas has seen a strong surge in prices over the past year. On the flip side, ethanol production in a natural gas powered ethanol plant leads to a reduction of 16 - 20% greenhouse gas emissions over gasoline while coal powered plants only see a reduction of about 3 - 5% (National Geographic Oct. 2007 Issue). So if a company could reduce or eliminate the emission of GHGs during ethanol production, a cheap form of energy (coal) would become a reasonable alternative. This is, of course, if the process can be made economically viable, which is hard to tell at this point. ADM hopes that the procedure will prove to be a benefit to their plant and serve as a model for all industries, not just the ethanol industry, that carbon sequestration works. I guess we will just have to wait and see since the results won't be available until 2012.

$100 Oil

2008-01-04T11:45:00.000-08:00

With oil reaching $100 per barrel, the entire energy market has seen reverberations. Most would agree that an ideal situation in the future will be one in which we can uncouple the oil markets from the ethanol and corn markets but right now that simply can not be done. Some of the growing pains seen in the ethanol and ag markets in the past year are a direct result of traders, such as those on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), trying to find a level at which corn is priced correctly relative to ethanol relative to oil. The only way to uncouple this phenomenon is to transition towards an ethanol industry built on corn but made of cellulosic feedstocks that don't impact the grain markets. However, with oil, corn, and ethanol tied together, their prices are guaranteed to move in tandem.

This fact was pointed out in the Des Moines Register's article "Crop, ethanol prices mirror oil's rise," and can be linked to by following the link shown below.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080104/BUSINESS01/80104018

The article points out that as oil has approached $100 a barrel in recent days, ethanol has moved up 22 cents per gallon on the CBOT to $2.22 per gallon and corn prices have continued to rise; reaching $4.66 per bushel on Thursday. Many of my friends would clamor to claim fowl against the ethanol industry or the corn farmers for the record profits that they must be making with these amazing new prices. However, the ethanol plants are only averaging around 3.5 cents per gallon of ethanol produced because of their higher input costs (corn). Similarly, farmers should not be made out to be the culprits in some kind of price write-up scheme. There input prices to grow the corn, such as seed and fertilizer have also reached record levels this year, which serves to negate much if not all of the additional profits the farmers might be seeing. Unfortunately, baring the introduction of a new feedstock, such as switchgrass, or the removal of oil's volatility from the energy markets this new scenario of oil, ethanol, and corn prices moving together will probably be something the industries and consumers must be ready to deal with for quite some time to come.

Below is DTN's calculation for their hypothetical South Dakota ethanol plant with input costs calculated.

Note: The above green line is the net income seen for E100 per gallon, while the net profit is around 3.6 cents per gallon.

Worldwide Biomass

2008-01-03T09:26:00.000-08:00

Looking towards the future of a global renewable fuels market, we need to have only one word in mind... biomass. As technology improves, processing will eventually switch from sugars, such as corn or sugar cane, to plant material that is harder to break down, such as lignin and cellulose. While it is imperative that we are watchful not to do more harm than good by, for example, reducing rainforest area to process into biofuels, there is a large potential for developing countries to take part in this effort because of their biomass concentration. Below is an interesting picture to illustrate that fact.

www.geocities.com/dieret/re/Biomass/biomass.html

With the correct implementation of conservation and re-planting techniques, these areas could potentially be a great source of revenue. Either way, it is important in this period of extreme flux in our energy and agricultural systems that we pay attention to what may lie ahead so that we can decide with a clear mind and clear conscious what path we should take.

Ethanol: At What Cost?

2008-01-02T09:37:00.000-08:00

A common piece of conversation surrounding ethanol isn't energy security, or the potential environmental benefits, but what ethanol will mean to the consumer. Questions like, at what price will filling up on E10 or E85 be more costly to me than purchasing regular unleaded gasoline? Although I think that looking only at ethanol's price to determine whether to fill up with it is to ignore the benefits that are unable to be calculated, such as a decrease in geo-political tensions due to the decrease in oil imports, or the decrease of greenhouse gases into the environment, but I also agree with these people that consumers will wait until retailers price ethanol correctly.

This discussion has become more interesting recently when oil prices rocketed up to nearly $100 per barrel, which saw a jump in gasoline prices. A similar jump in ethanol inventories allowed ethanol to be priced less than gasoline for the first time and retailers jumped at the opportunity to blend more ethanol into their gasoline. But now that prices in both sectors are beginning to stabilize, there has to be a way to track these prices to see whether it is worth it to fill up.

By following the link below, you will find an easy way to input the price of unleaded gasoline (with an 89 octane rating so as to match the E10 blended octane number), that will be responsive to local gasoline pricing.

http://data.desmoinesregister.com/fuelcalculator/ethanolcalculator.php

I've found that many websites will calculate the prices for E10 and E85 based on the price of regular 87 octane gasoline, which is a different product all together and misleading since the price will be lower due to lower potential engine performance.

One interesting thing found when using the calculator above was that the current price of E10 is priced correctly (approximately 10 cents per gallon cheaper and in some cases 12 cents per gallon cheaper than gasoline). Again, this will depend on region, but assuming that regular gasoline is priced at $3.03 per gallon, E10 should be priced at least 8 cents per gallon cheaper or $2.95 per gallon to be an equivalent source of energy. E85 should be priced at least 69 cents per gallon cheaper, or $2.34 per gallon in order to be as cost effective as unleaded gasoline. Keep in mind that the current price of gasoline at $3.03 is regional and subject to change in different parts of the US.
While E10 is priced approximately 10 cents per gallon cheaper, it will remain a better purchase. E85, for the most part, has been sold for $2.45 per gallon (according to AAA's website at http://www.fuelgaugereport.com/, and so it is not economical. This is the case for two reasons -- the demand is simply not there due to the lack of flex fuel vehicles and so it is still a "boutique fuel" that comes at a high infrastructure cost to the gas station. The second reason in simply that the retailer wants to make a profit on the fuel. Current E100 rack prices are at $2.21 per gallon and so anything priced above that will be profit for the retailer. Unfortunately, unless the gasoline prices take off towards much higher values, it is reasonable to say that ethanol and gasoline prices will probably trend together. In other words, the costs will stay consistently within the value recalculated for their energy density. As we saw above, E10 is currently the better buy but retailers should adjust their E85 prices so that consumers are more enticed to buy the fuel.

Fuel Economy

2007-12-28T18:38:00.000-08:00

After taking a detour into auto-mechanics in the last post, I think it's time to get back on track. This post will involve both evolving ethanol knowledge and its application in car engines. Before going any further, I want to add that this research is new and needs more verification before any of the results should be implemented. However, it is always good to keep track of the newest information.

The research, released in November of 2007, was conducted by the University of North Dakota and Minnesota State University and can be found at

http://www.ethanol.org/pdf/contentmgmt/ACE_Optimal_Ethanol_Blend_Level_Study_final_12507.pdf. This study mirrors the call for more information on blending standards for cars in the United States. Currently, car makers will only honor their warranties on cars that fill up to E10 or a 10% ethanol blend in non-flex fuel capable cars. However, partly because of an anticipated excess of ethanol and because of a desire to blend ethanol in higher amounts to displace US imports of foreign oil there has been a call to look into the possibility of higher blends in non-flex fuel cars. The study looked at the the use of regular unleaded gasoline, E20, and E30 blends in four different cars. These cars were the 2007 models of the Toyota Camry, the Chevrolet Impala (flex fuel), the Chevrolet Impala (non-flex fuel), and the Ford Fusion. Results are displayed below.

As I mentioned before, the researchers would be the first ones to point out that the results are preliminary, but they are interesting. The above bar graph reveals the results of their tests showing that two models showed an increase of 1% in fuel economy for the E30 blend over conventional gasoline (the Camry and the Fusion), and the flex-fuel vehicle saw an amazing 15% increase in its E20 blend over conventional gasoline. Although unexpected, the researchers believe that some engines might have 'sweet spots' at which a certain blend might have the optimum combination of ethanol and gasoline to allow for a high mileage.

But what might be even more interesting is that all of the models of cars in all of the blends outperformed their calculated MPG based on their penalties for decreased energy densities. In other words, ethanol's energy density should result in a decrease in mileage by 2.7% for every 10 percent of ethanol blended into the gasoline. Below is an example from the sited study to reveal how the data bumped above the calculated energy density for the Toyota Camry.

As you can see above, the apparent 'sweet spot' in the Camry is around E30. Even though these tests need to be corroborated, they agree with similar results seen in 2005 in the study found at http://www.ethanol.org/pdf/contentmgmt/ACEFuelEconomyStudy_001.pdf.

While these studies show that E20 and E30 could be incorporated into non-flex fuel vehicles, a better potential benefit of this study is the realization that it may be possible to engineer a car engine to favor ethanol over gasoline, thereby relieving any potential MPG dip due to lower energy density. This would seem to parallel the finding in the previous post that a turbocharged engine built with ethanol in mind might be able to alleviate several of the potential negative aspects of ethanol.

Turbocharged Ethanol

2007-12-27T09:31:00.000-08:00

While some are busy at work creating the next generation of ethanol produced from cellulosics, MIT's best and brightest are continuing to work hard for the development of the next generation engine. In the process of developing industry and technology that will benefit the environment and our energy security it may be easy to lose track of how the system needs to come together. What I mean by this is that whether or not ethanol's lower energy density results in decreased MPG than gasoline, doesn't necessarily mean that we need to live with this problem. In fact, the engine may be optimized for gasoline usage without taking into consideration the advantages that ethanol might bring.

This case is illustrated in J. B. Heywood's work titled "Calculations of Knock Suppression in Highly Turbocharged Gasoline/Ethanol Engines Using Direct Ethanol Injection," and can be found at http://www.ethanolboost.com/LFEE-2006-01.pdf. The basis of the study attempts to answer the problem of knock suppression in turbocharged engines using ethanol. But first, let's back up for a second. Turbocharging in an internal combustion engine is the use of the exhaust gas from the engine to drive a wheel that compresses the air to deliver to the engine. This allows for more air to enter the engine than a naturally aspirated engine and improves on the energy-to-size ratio of the engine. In other words, using the turbocharged engine allows for the use of much smaller engines with the same or more energy and torque output of the engine. The one problem with this is that a turbocharged engine is more susceptible to engine knock. Knocking occurs when the fuel/air mixture is ignited correctly in the piston but then a second pocket of fuel ignites as well. These two countering fronts of energy create destructive interference for each other, which can range from mistiming the stroke of the engine causing a loss of power all the way to possibly destroying the engine.

Ethanol has two key components that make it a prime candidate to combat engine knock in turbocharged engines -- 1) its high octane rating, and 2) ethanol's capability for evaporative cooling of the system after ignition.

Ethanol's octane rating (115 versus 87 for normal gasoline), prevents engine knock because, by definition, ethanol's fuel has the right kind of molecules that will ignite correctly and uniformly under pressure. A second requirement in turbocharged engines is to quickly decrease the in-cylinder (charge) temperatures so as to prevent the detonation of unexploded fuel/gas mixtures. This is accomplished by ethanol's ability to quickly cool the mixture to 355K versus 383K (Heywood et. al 2006).

According the Heywood, he concludes that a turbocharged engine would allow for the size of a modern fuel-injected engine to be decreased by half. At the same time, the manifold pressure and compression ratios could be increased allowing for comparative engine performance compared to the larger gasoline fueled engines. This is all possible because of the knock suppression of an ethanol blend. Heywood calculates that with the engine downsizing and performance enhancement of the turbocharged engine, efficiency of the automobile could actually increased by 30%! This would, in effect, completely offset the calculated energy density penalty of ethanol on the MPGs of a car, (which is approximately 27%).

As a final note, I found an update on this technology today that these researchers are working closely with Ford in the production of this engine and are progressing quickly. Hopefully we will see these engines in the near future.

Electricity

2007-11-21T19:29:00.000-08:00

I thought that to start off, I should collect as much baseline information as possible. Here are some real good figures that I found on the Department of Energy's website:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/brochure/electricity/electricity.html

Information was originally from the Energy Information Administration's 2003 "Combined Heat and Power Plant Report."

I was kind of surprised to see the amount of hydroelectric power generated in the United States, although I would guess that a large portion of that comes from large operations such as the Hoover Dam.

Below is another plot of average electricity prices by state. I thought it was relevent since my last post dealt a lot with electricity prices so I better indicate where those numbers came from.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/brochure/electricity/electricity.html

Gasoline Vs. Electricity

2007-11-21T19:08:00.000-08:00

I think that in this day and age there are a lot of things open to debate -- from embryonic stem cells to abortion to the war in the Iraq -- where either side of the argument probably has a valid point. When debating some of these alternatives to gasoline for cars, it's hard to debate the numbers and I think it'll go a long way to helping America choose the right choice for the future if more people can be informed so...
If you guys want to check the numbers and/or the math, feel free. They came from the Department of Energy's web site and I corroborated them from other sites as well: (Bare with me)...
To accurately debate the benefits of electric powered cars (not hybrids that create electricity by the braking of the car which is different and good), you need to consider two factors... CO2 emissions and cost. So, what I did first was to look up the average CO2 emissions for America (since this is an average it includes huge nuclear power plants such as Palos Verde in Arizona, wind, water, and of course, coal power plants so I think the actual number for coal fired power plants would be higher) The amount of CO2 emitted per Kilowatt hour is 2.117 pounds of CO2 per KWH (kilowatt hour). Next, I found the average price per KWH of electricity in the United States, which comes out to 9.86 cents per KWH. So, so far for electricity we have:

2.117 pounds CO2 per KWH
9.86cents per KWH

For gasoline, the AAA national average is $3.28 per gallon. The CO2 emissions per gallon of gasoline is 19.4 pounds per gallon. Again, these values are very easy to look up on the internet. So for gasoline:

19.4 pounds CO2 per gallon
$3.28 per gallon

So, the only hard part is to convert KWH into gasoline so that price and CO2 emissions could be compared. This was done by looking up the conversion factor. After confirming with several websites (including the Department of Energy's), the conversion factor is

1 gallon gasoline = 36.3 KWH

Next, I converted the numbers:

2.117 pounds/KWH (36.3 KWH/gallon) = 76.83 pounds/gallon

9.86 cents/KWH (36.3 KWH/gallon) ($1/100cents) = $3.58 per gallon

To sum up, if you were to power your car entirely using electricity at this point in time, you would increase your CO2 emitted per distance traveled on a gallon from 19.4 pounds of CO2 to 76.83 pounds. Almost four times MORE. And, it would cost you more.
Now, this is not to say that I don't think electric powered cars is a good thing. I already mentioned the differance in hybrid technology that allows powering the car by breaking (which does not involve CO2 emission). But a lot of people don't realize that with electricity you're not getting something for free. Although I probably shouldn't have let it bother me, your comments this afternoon did hurt. I have to put up with a lot of criticism of ethanol everyday from my peers and not a lot of encouragement. (Some of the criticism is warranted but a lot involves people not being aware of the facts, as seen above). Everyone understands that the solution to environmental concerns and energy security for the United States will not be solved ONLY with ethanol, or any one energy for that matter, but we also can't afford to have knee jerk reactions just because electricity seems safe and free of emissions. I hope the numbers above clear some of that up and frame the debate a little better. As technology increases, power plants will pollute less but may cost more, which will prevent developing nations from being able to consider $3.58 per gallon electricity that we have now.